The Udder Side of Love
by lavendercookie
Summary: A story of the fun times in Mineral town, as told by a dependable animal who does not take 'bull' from anybody.
1. A Moo Beginning

A story of love, self-discovery and a protagonist who views the world differently than most. CowxChicken

**A/N Just trying something different! Let me know your opinions :)**

I moved to this farm three years ago, not knowing what to expect. Leaving my old life behind, I began to build up a successful business in the country. I got my affairs in order then packed up and left for Mineral town, a place that I soon came to call home. My travel agent, Vaughn, found a farm for me that already provided a female human to grow food for me. That way I could focus my energy on organizing the serious matters of my new life raising a barn. My life as the newest cow in Mineral town began roughly, but the country lifestyle soon whipped me into shape and I grew from an innocent calf into a strong man—a real bull.

The days passed and over time I became one of the most successful barn owners in the region. Many animals—some cows, some sheep and even a horse—joined my organization. One day, after I was finished running a barnyard meeting discussing the merits of quality fodder being available in the workplace, my thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the door.

The knock came from a chicken pecking at my office door. She was interested in meeting with me about my barn. Her name was Jezebel—a savoury name, for someone with an equally succulent appearance. When she came close to me to greet me, I could smell her rosemary scented perfume; that scrumptious scent was oh so palatable. We discussed the merits of merging her neighbouring chicken coop with my barn in an attempt to combat the recession that was rampant in our town at the time, but I found my thoughts wandering as I stared into her beautiful beady eyes.

_Moo_, I thought to myself. I hoped Jezebel was thinking the same thing—I was getting a really positive vibe from her. Truthfully, I had been meaning to meet to the stunning redhead earlier, but I had been tied up with work. Or maybe I was too shy to initiate a conversation. Either way, as we talked business, and elegantly navigated through an intelligent discourse, I grew fonder of the fantasy that we could be together forever.

Finally we finished talking business. My chance to make a move had finally presented itself. I paused, panicked, and then re-gained my composure. Mustering up all the courage within my 975 pound body, I asked Jezebel directly: "Moo?"

Jezebel, who was just about to leave, suddenly turned around, showing off her curvy 4 pound figure just as well as ever. Her eyes were wide with shock, and she stood silent, staring at me for what seemed like hours, taking breaks only to peck at the ground or walk around, but never breaking the connection our eyes had established. After what seemed like an eternity she replied, "WRA WRA WROOOA RU-UH WRAAA!" then stormed out of the barn, flustered.

It was just as you'd expect from a fiery redhead. Intelligent, beautiful, and playing hard to get. Still, I felt dejected. To cheer myself up, I had my human brush me and say words to me.

I know humans don't understand mooing, but I mooed at her anyways because I think she can tell that I care about her and that I am thankful to have her when I do that. After all, she may not realize it, but she provides food for my barn, cuts the sheep's hair for them, and milks my daughters regularly to keep their udders in good health, and that keeps my business alive. All she gets in return is the small shelter I had Vaughn provide for her.

Whenever I moo at my human, she tries to moo back at me. I think it is really cute! It will look silly when I try and write it down, but the sound she makes goes something like, "I wish that you'd stop hitting on my chickens. Look, none of them are interested, okay?" She just spouts human gibberish like that, and it is just adorable.

I thought that it was sad that I had to keep her captive on my farm, but she seemed happy enough. Sometimes though, I heard her crying at night. I wondered if she would stop crying if I gave her a male human to keep her company.


	2. Tipping Point

**A/N: Thanks for reading so far guys! I've had some good discussions with reviewers so far (I like to respond to every review) so don't hesitate to leave some concrit or anything! **

A week had passed after the Jezebel Incident, and life had returned to the status quo. There was work to be done for the barn, and I was the man to do it. My number one action-item was to interactively e-enable client-focused barn synergy incentives by—oh I shan't bore you with the details of my work. What I accomplished was very important for our projected quarterly profits, though.

I was reflecting upon how my hard work had recouped most of what the failed merger had cost the company when I started thinking too hard... _Recouped_… _Re__**coop**__ed_. Absolutely everything reminded me of Jezebel, and the fact that we hadn't even spoken for the long week after our awkward encounter. The merger between that saucy redheaded chicken's coop and my well established barn fell through, all because of one word.

_Moo_.

I couldn't believe I had the nerve to say that to someone while we were doing business. Normally I would never have mixed business and pleasure, and I think the fact that I tried to came off aggressive and offended Jezebel. I decided that I had to go see her and apologize.

I left the office and started on my way to the chicken coop where Jezebel lived. It was late at night, well after work. After work we lived on our own time; I reasoned that after waiting this long, she might have become tender enough to hear me out.

On my way to the coop, I heard my human slave-child, Claire making sounds. I named my human Claire because when she brushes me she looks like a doctor-cow resuscitating someone. It's like her little brush is a defibrillator; every time she brushed me I practically expected her to yell "_CLAIRE_!" then shock me and restart my heart. But my heart couldn't have withstood anymore shock that night. I noticed as I neared Claire's house the she sounded distressed. Perhaps it was _I_ who needed to defibrillate _Claire's_ aching heart that night.

I slowed my resolute strides towards the coop and approached the window of Claire's little house. I got her attention by licking her window, as per usual. Her sounds of distress turned into relaxed coos that sounded like "HEY! Dumb cow! Stop licking my window! _Agh_!"

Claire stormed out of her house in her pyjamas and was visibly upset. I licked her face to let her know everything would be okay. My tongue soothingly massaged her entire face all at once and she fell into a deep state of calmness. Her face turned very red, which meant that she was beginning to de-stress. As she relaxed, she babbled, "COW! WHY CAN'T YOU JUST LEAVE ME ALONE?!" _Cute_!

I let her hold onto my necklace as we went for a calming midnight stroll back to the barn, our thoughts drifting away from our troubles. She pulled really hard on it. That must have been good for her decompression.

We arrived at the barn and she let out a terrifyingly loud sigh, which she usually does when everything is back to being perfect in her life again. That must have been nice for her. As for me, I still had the Jezebel situation to face. Butterflies momentarily fluttered in three of my stomachs, so I focused all my attention on the stomach without butterflies in an attempt to push Jezebel out of my mind. I had to help my Claire before I helped myself, I decided.

As Claire and I parted ways, I saw that her face was covered in tears. That seemed atypical of a happy human, based on my research. Something must have been really wrong if she was still sad after all the comfort I gave her.

The trouble, I thought, was that Claire was never sad when she was with me, but she usually got really sad whenever she was alone. I ruminated upon the idea of having more human slaves, and decided that despite the extra work I would have to do, having another human worker would increase Claire's productivity as well as the profitability of my barn. I resolved that I needed to get her another human to keep her company so that she could interact with others of her kind, just like she would have done in the wild.

* * *

The next morning, I got up quite early—I was going into town. Truthfully, I hadn't been to town very often, due to work at the barn keeping me so preoccupied. I ambled through the town square, but no one was around. Perhaps not many humans woke up as early in the morning as Claire and I did.

At any rate, I came across a tall building that was built next to a gated field full of peculiar rocks. The building's windows were tall and very colourful. Also, there was an unfamiliar sight near the building. _Humans_! I inwardly exclaimed. There were two of them, both male, standing in the field and interacting with each other. I came up to them cautiously, as I didn't want to frighten them away. I began to eat the grass to show them I meant no harm, and they began to slowly approach me.

* * *

It was an hour long trek back to the farm, but with my newest recruit in tow, I couldn't help but feel ecstatic for the duration of the return journey. I examined him thoroughly the entire way. His coat was black, except for a white scarf he draped over his shoulders, untied. _Humans sure do look weird_, I thought. His head fur has yellowish, which matched with Claire's.

When I arrived back at the barn with my new male human, Claire was there. She looked relieved to see me, as she always did, but was acting differently than her typical self. She looked happier; she must have been excited to be presented with such a suitable mate.

I was very surprised at the reaction of the two humans. They must have been very agitated, because they began squawking at each other incessantly! It was pandemonium! I couldn't follow all of it if I tried:

"Claire, I found this little guy near…Thanks… Listen, Carter I… don't mention it… Claire, about what you and Gray… so embarrassing Carter… and now everyone thinks that I'm a crazy stalker girl but I'm not! Honestly!"

The silence that followed that chaos was slightly eerie. Claire's eyes became glossy and the male I had brought her appeared to be more interested in the floor than the female of his species for some reason. I was standing behind the male still, so I nudged him gently towards Claire, in case he forgot that she was there.

I think that shove in the right direction helped, because they caught each other and held on for a while, looking at each other. He realized that Claire existed again! He sure got distracted easily though… _Another nudge, just to be_ _sure_, I thought. I gently pushed the two humans together again which caused them to fall over. It wasn't my fault that humans are so easy to tip over. It was kind of fun though; as I thought about the entertainment I got out of tipping them over, I had this vague feeling that justice had been done. I quickly abandoned the thought, but I held on to the pleasant feeling.

On the ground in the barn, the male was on top of Claire for a moment; his mouth was slightly agape and his face was close to hers. Claire looked like she was very uncomfortable under the weight of the larger human, but she was smiling. All the same, they managed to regain their composure quickly and they stood up again.

They mulled around the barn for a minute or so, communicating with their primitive sounds. Afterwards the mate I brought for Claire began to leave, but he stopped to listen to Claire:

"I—just come back soon, Carter, okay?"

"Claire, I don't know if I should… The next time we meet will be at the church, I'm afraid. Talk to Gray in the meantime, it will help things."

"He likes you… Oh, my cow—I think he likes you."

I smiled at my new farm hand, and he smiled back wryly.

The male left the farm briskly. I supposed that he would have to commute to work from his home, as Claire's home was not spacious enough for two humans. Nevertheless, Claire was beaming all day, even when I wasn't around.

My barnyard was back at maximum productivity, and that meant there was only one thing left to do. _Tomorrow_. _I'll go to see Jezebel and—_

My mind blanked. I stood, panicking. Jezebel was approaching the barn, with a fierce look on her face. In no time, she stood directly in front of me, staring expectantly with her lavish beady black eyes. My mind was reeling just to think of anything to say, and I felt an overwhelming brightness come over me. I stared wordlessly at Jezebel as a strange feeling entered my head and the brightness became blinding. I was standing just inches away from sweet Jezebel, still thinking of something to say when I blacked out.

**A/NII: this chapter turned out longer than I intended so I had to take out some descriptions to keep it leaner, but next chapter is shaping up to be more descript, and should be shorter, now that the introductions are mostly underway. Thanks for your lovely readership :)**

**A/N: Thanks for reading so far guys! I've had some good discussions with reviewers so far (I like to respond to every review) so don't hesitate to leave some concrit or anything! **

A week had passed after the Jezebel Incident, and life had returned to the status quo. There was work to be done for the barn, and I was the man to do it. My number one action-item was to interactively e-enable client-focused barn synergy incentives by—oh I shan't bore you with the details of my work. What I accomplished was very important for our projected quarterly profits, though.

I was reflecting upon how my hard work had recouped most of what the failed merger had cost the company when I started thinking too hard... _Recouped_… _Re__**coop**__ed_. Absolutely everything reminded me of Jezebel, and the fact that we hadn't even spoken for the long week after our awkward encounter. The merger between that saucy redheaded chicken's coop and my well established barn fell through, all because of one word.

_Moo_.

I couldn't believe I had the nerve to say that to someone while we were doing business. Normally I would never have mixed business and pleasure, and I think the fact that I tried to came off aggressive and offended Jezebel. I decided that I had to go see her and apologize.

I left the office and started on my way to the chicken coop where Jezebel lived. It was late at night, well after work. After work we lived on our own time; I reasoned that after waiting this long, she might have become tender enough to hear me out.

On my way to the coop, I heard my human slave-child, Claire making sounds. I named my human Claire because when she brushes me she looks like a doctor-cow resuscitating someone. It's like her little brush is a defibrillator; every time she brushed me I practically expected her to yell "_CLAIRE_!" then shock me and restart my heart. But my heart couldn't have withstood anymore shock that night. I noticed as I neared Claire's house the she sounded distressed. Perhaps it was _I_ who needed to defibrillate _Claire's_ aching heart that night.

I slowed my resolute strides towards the coop and approached the window of Claire's little house. I got her attention by licking her window, as per usual. Her sounds of distress turned into relaxed coos that sounded like "HEY! Dumb cow! Stop licking my window! _Agh_!"

Claire stormed out of her house in her pyjamas and was visibly upset. I licked her face to let her know everything would be okay. My tongue soothingly massaged her entire face all at once and she fell into a deep state of calmness. Her face turned very red, which meant that she was beginning to de-stress. As she relaxed, she babbled, "COW! WHY CAN'T YOU JUST LEAVE ME ALONE?!" _Cute_!

I let her hold onto my necklace as we went for a calming midnight stroll back to the barn, our thoughts drifting away from our troubles. She pulled really hard on it. That must have been good for her decompression.

We arrived at the barn and she let out a terrifyingly loud sigh, which she usually does when everything is back to being perfect in her life again. That must have been nice for her. As for me, I still had the Jezebel situation to face. Butterflies momentarily fluttered in three of my stomachs, so I focused all my attention on the stomach without butterflies in an attempt to push Jezebel out of my mind. I had to help my Claire before I helped myself, I decided.

As Claire and I parted ways, I saw that her face was covered in tears. That seemed atypical of a happy human, based on my research. Something must have been really wrong if she was still sad after all the comfort I gave her.

The trouble, I thought, was that Claire was never sad when she was with me, but she usually got really sad whenever she was alone. I ruminated upon the idea of having more human slaves, and decided that despite the extra work I would have to do, having another human worker would increase Claire's productivity as well as the profitability of my barn. I resolved that I needed to get her another human to keep her company so that she could interact with others of her kind, just like she would have done in the wild.

* * *

The next morning, I got up quite early—I was going into town. Truthfully, I hadn't been to town very often, due to work at the barn keeping me so preoccupied. I ambled through the town square, but no one was around. Perhaps not many humans woke up as early in the morning as Claire and I did.

At any rate, I came across a tall building that was built next to a gated field full of peculiar rocks. The building's windows were tall and very colourful. Also, there was an unfamiliar sight near the building. _Humans_! I inwardly exclaimed. There were two of them, both male, standing in the field and interacting with each other. I came up to them cautiously, as I didn't want to frighten them away. I began to eat the grass to show them I meant no harm, and they began to slowly approach me.

* * *

It was an hour long trek back to the farm, but with my newest recruit in tow, I couldn't help but feel ecstatic for the duration of the return journey. I examined him thoroughly the entire way. His coat was black, except for a white scarf he draped over his shoulders, untied. _Humans sure do look weird_, I thought. His head fur has yellowish, which matched with Claire's.

When I arrived back at the barn with my new male human, Claire was there. She looked relieved to see me, as she always did, but was acting differently than her typical self. She looked happier; she must have been excited to be presented with such a suitable mate.

I was very surprised at the reaction of the two humans. They must have been very agitated, because they began squawking at each other incessantly! It was pandemonium! I couldn't follow all of it if I tried:

"Claire, I found this little guy near…Thanks… Listen, Carter I… don't mention it… Claire, about what you and Gray… so embarrassing Carter… and now everyone thinks that I'm a crazy stalker girl but I'm not! Honestly!"

The silence that followed that chaos was slightly eerie. Claire's eyes became glossy and the male I had brought her appeared to be more interested in the floor than the female of his species for some reason. I was standing behind the male still, so I nudged him gently towards Claire, in case he forgot that she was there.

I think that shove in the right direction helped, because they caught each other and held on for a while, looking at each other. He realized that Claire existed again! He sure got distracted easily though… _Another nudge, just to be_ _sure_, I thought. I gently pushed the two humans together again which caused them to fall over. It wasn't my fault that humans are so easy to tip over. It was kind of fun though; as I thought about the entertainment I got out of tipping them over, I had this vague feeling that justice had been done. I quickly abandoned the thought, but I held on to the pleasant feeling.

On the ground in the barn, the male was on top of Claire for a moment; his mouth was slightly agape and his face was close to hers. Claire looked like she was very uncomfortable under the weight of the larger human, but she was smiling. All the same, they managed to regain their composure quickly and they stood up again.

They mulled around the barn for a minute or so, communicating with their primitive sounds. Afterwards the mate I brought for Claire began to leave, but he stopped to listen to Claire:

"I—just come back soon, Carter, okay?"

"Claire, don't know if I should… The next time we meet will be at the church, I'm afraid. Talk to Gray in the meantime, it will help things."

"He likes you… Oh, my cow—I think he likes you."

I smiled at my new farm hand, and he smile wryly.

The male left the farm briskly. I supposed that he would have to commute to work from his home, as Claire's home was not spacious enough for two humans. Nevertheless, Claire was beaming all day, even when I wasn't around.

My barnyard was back at maximum productivity, and that meant there was only one thing left to do. _Tomorrow_. _I'll go to see Jezebel and—_

My mind blanked. I stood, panicking. Jezebel was approaching the barn, with a fierce look on her face. In no time, she stood directly in front of me, staring expectantly with her lavish beady black eyes. My mind was reeling just to think of anything to say, and I felt an overwhelming brightness come over me. I stared wordlessly at Jezebel as a strange feeling entered my head and the brightness became blinding. I was standing just inches away from sweet Jezebel, still thinking of something to say when I blacked out.

**A/NII: this chapter turned out longer than I intended so I had to take out some descriptions to keep it leaner, but next chapter is shaping up to be more descript, and should be shorter, now that the introductions are mostly underway. Thanks for your lovely readership :)**


	3. Sleepy Slip-ups

**A/N: To my reviewers: thank you very much for the support! It's turning out to be really fun to write this, so thanks for sticking with it. I hope it gets as fun for you guys to read as it is getting for me to write! Let me know what you think of this chapter, mysteries may be revealed! Read on…**

* * *

I woke up bleary eyed. I had no idea of how long I was passed out; the only indication of time available was that it was the sun was high in the sky. I must have been unconscious for hours… The last thing I remembered was fainting as soon as Jezebel came to the barn around 8 o'clock last night. The shock combined with my stress from overwork at the barn must have caused me to lie sleeping until noon the next day!

I stood up to begin a new day, taking in the surroundings of the barn. _Oh my grosh_. I stayed in place, unable to move my muscles at the scene. Lying behind where I slept was a small, white egg.

_D-did I lay this? No one else is around, I must have! _How_ could this happen? I can't have a baby_, I thought to myself. _Not with the barn as busy as it is… The summer is the busiest season for us! _I nearly fainted again at the prospect. I was the already the busiest man in Mineral town! Still, its plump, loveable shape did look really cute. _Just like your father_, I caught myself thinking.

I picked up the egg as gently as I could in my mouth. My breath condensed on the shell as I exhaled, giving one side a beaded glossy coat. I had never laid an egg before. I needed to get advice on how to take care of it. Swallowing all my apprehension, I marched over to Jezebel's coop, my egg tenderly resting between my over sized tongue and the roof of my mouth.

When I arrived, the atmosphere was tense. There I stood, holding my baby, facing Jezebel in her coop. I leaned as close to the ground as I could, and allowed the egg to gently fall from its place atop my tongue to the soft ground below. I motioned to raise my head back to its accustomed position just above my shoulders, but I stopped halfway as my eyes met Jezebel's.

I knew she had raised many eggs successfully, and she knew I needed her help more than anything with this new baby. Our eyes remained connected as she began to walk. She looked away briefly to watch her footing as continued, and that was the end of our unspoken conversation. She perched herself atop my egg, incubating it with her body heat. She ruffled her feathers uncomfortably, but soon became more relaxed. I knew she was still angry at me, but our relationship had to be put on hold in this time of crisis. It was funny how having another child could turn my life upside down in an instant. She glanced at me icily, but gave up on that disposition in favour of pecking at her feathers.

I exited the coop with a tear slipping down my furry cheek, for I knew that child belonged to Jezebel just as much as it belonged to me. That long-passed moonlit night we spent together in the pasture seemed like so long ago. Things could have been much happier if we focused on our love for each other when we used to date, instead of only paying attention to our work… For the whole day I thought about how things could have been different. I worked desperately at the barn to compensate for oversleeping, right up until I finally went to sleep again.

* * *

In the middle of night I was woken up by a loud thud against the wall of my barn. I bolted upright, realizing that I was under attack. The attacker's specialty was striking at night, in packs, in an attempt to pillage my business. _Tomorrow I dine on raccoon stew_, I declared, readying myself for a war against the furry scavengers of the night. I stormed out of the barn in full battle gear and let loose a tremendous battle cry, but I realized I was not staring at a ravenous pack of raccoons at all! That was probably for the benefit of tomorrow's stew, for you see I am a vegetarian.

There before me stood my Claire, rubbing her eyes and looking like an overtired sack of potatoes. She was at least dressed like a sack of potatoes, in her ratty blue and purple pyjamas that sported many different fraying threads. Her frizzy blonde hair drooped over her shoulders in a tangled mess that ended just over her modest breasts. Her tiny stature paled in comparison to my enormous frame, and any other puny human would be horrified to stand where she was standing. But we were pretty tight home-G's, so it was all good in our hood.

I should explain the situation. Claire had a bit of a unique issue; on several occasions I had caught her sleepwalking—she left her house in a groggy state and returned to bed sometimes close to an hour later, not remembering any of it. She got so entranced that sometimes she even left the farm! I feared for her safety at night, and could only hope that she didn't harm herself ever.

"Where am I… Why do you have a colander on your head, cow?" I think Claire was admiring my prized war ensemble as she came to her senses. She was torn out of her sleepy trance by my fearsome war cry. The whole town must have been shaking in their boots at the sound of it, actually.

I had her remove the armour from my head as she oriented herself. She was awake and fully conscious by the time she held my colander helmet in her hands, but she was still vulnerable, as her body was still set to sleep mode. She wailed: "Not again… no! Why can't I just… be… normal…"

She fell against me and began to trickle salt water onto my fur. _You know Claire, I just washed this coat,_ I thought, but it was not like she knew any better. I let her sob away into my side; I desperately wanted to calm her down.

Truthfully, Claire was very sensitive about her sleep-walking 'condition'. Every time that I woke up in time to catch her in the act, when she snapped out of her trance she would become hysterical! I wanted to avoid putting her under excessive mental stress, so sometimes if I was not too sleepy I would just follow her to make sure she didn't hurt herself before she returned to her bed.

A week earlier, there was one such night...

* * *

On said night, I was unable to sleep due to thoughts of Jezebel keeping me awake. It was well into the wee hours of the morning, I heard Claire's door open and close, which seemed unusual. My thoughts were disorganized, and I had no chance of sleeping, so I got up to investigate my human's night-time scampering and make sure she didn't put herself into any danger.

She left the farm, and headed towards town, with a demeanour that even in her sleep seemed practiced. She swung a quick right towards the inn. The cobblestone path was eerily lit by towering lampposts, their yellowish light casting unreal shadows in impossible directions. Shrubs lined the path, and I examined them vigilantly as I walked twenty paces behind her. Even I could admit I was jumpy, but I had to protect my Claire, without having her wake up.

I watched to make sure she didn't walk into any walls or lamp posts, but she had no trouble navigating the simple path we were heading forward on. As she approached the inn, Claire began to act strangely. With the same confidence that she sleepily paraded towards the inn with, she circumvented the main entrance in favour of going around to the side of the inn and—_oh no_. She began to _climb_ and before I could catch up to her and stop her she was well out of my reach, at the second story window, hanging onto the wooden trellis. She climbed up with the tips of her feet balancing in thin diamond shaped holes between the wooden struts in a situation that could only be described as "precarious".

Her eyes were half open. She stood there motionless with her face pressed against the window for what felt like hours, but couldn't have actually been more than a few minutes. Her breath left a frosted patch on the window in the cold summer night's air, and she drew a primitive shape in the window while smiling an endearing smile, but it didn't seem genuine. Suddenly, a loud, manly scream from inside.

For a brief instant, I thought Claire had been fully conscious; her eyes opened fully at the first sound of the red-haired boy's cries of protest, but then she regressed back to her sleep state, even as she fell from her perch on the second story. I couldn't catch her in time, but she didn't seem very badly injured, having landed on the relatively soft lawn below. _That will properly smart for her tomorrow morning_, I cringed.

The man with the messy red hair was still shouting from the other side of the window Claire had occupied moments before. His tired eyes suggested he had been sleeping on the other side of the window, on top of the fact the he was shirtless and had cute yellow and white striped pyjama bottoms on. He sounded irate.

Claire climbed upon my back, still without acknowledging my presence. She turned towards the male: "I just _love_ you Gray! You're… so….s-so….." She giggled while staring sleepily at the horror struck male on the second story of the inn. "…so…" she paused and stared at the man as if she was colorblind, and he was a Rubix cube, then sleepily turned to me seemingly having completed what she intended to say to the red-haired shirtless human.

"…KYAHH!" she unexpectedly dug her heels into my sides and leaned in close to me, kicking me into gear and streamlining our bodies for my record-breaking sprint back to the farm all at once. I was happy to get her back to her bed in double-time before she had any other opportunities to injure herself.

We were chased by the piercing screams of the red-topped male human from his window. He seemed like an angry human. Other townspeople poked their heads out of their homes to see what the commotion was all about. We passed by a home where a middle aged lady with straight black hair looked on the scene with content before we finally arrived at the farm. I was panting heavily, having just sprinted for over a kilometre. Claire lackadaisically dismounted from my back and returned to her bed. She pulled the covers over her head and instantly began snoring peacefully, blissfully unaware that her night-time "hobby" had been discovered.

Weirdest. Slave. Ever.

* * *

**A/N: **_Special thanks to _**AshRB**_ for pointing out that the story is set in Mineral town, not Castanet as I arbitrarily decided whilst writing the first paragraph of the story. I changed the first chapter to reflect the proper setting. I'm taking a more structured approach to writing this now, so there shouldn't be any more loopholes or continuity errors :)_

**To Iris, winter oak, XYV, AshRB and blacksunset1214: **Merry Christmas and happy holidays! Thank you for providing feedback on chapter 2, getting helpful reviews each chapter lets me know what the reading public wants!

**Stay tuned **for chapter 4!

**A/N: To my reviewers: thank you very much for the support! It's turning out to be really fun to write this, so thanks for sticking with it. I hope it gets as fun for you guys to read as it is getting for me to write! Let me know what you think of this chapter, mysteries may be revealed! Read on…**

* * *

I woke up bleary eyed. I had no idea of how long I was passed out; the only indication of time available was that it was the sun was high in the sky. I must have been unconscious for hours… The last thing I remembered was fainting as soon as Jezebel came to the barn around 8 o'clock last night. The shock combined with my stress from overwork at the barn must have caused me to lie sleeping until noon the next day!

I stood up to begin a new day, taking in the surroundings of the barn. _Oh my grosh_. I stayed in place, unable to move my muscles at the scene. Lying behind where I slept was a small, white egg.

_D-did I lay this? No one else is around, I must have! _How_ could this happen? I can't have a baby_, I thought to myself. _Not with the barn as busy as it is… The summer is the busiest season for us! _I nearly fainted again at the prospect. I was the already the busiest man in Mineral town! Still, its plump, loveable shape did look really cute. _Just like your father_, I caught myself thinking.

I picked up the egg as gently as I could in my mouth. My breath condensed on the shell as I exhaled, giving one side a beaded glossy coat. I had never laid an egg before. I needed to get advice on how to take care of it. Swallowing all my apprehension, I marched over to Jezebel's coop, my egg tenderly resting between my over sized tongue and the roof of my mouth.

When I arrived, the atmosphere was tense. There I stood, holding my baby, facing Jezebel in her coop. I leaned as close to the ground as I could, and allowed the egg to gently fall from its place atop my tongue to the soft ground below. I motioned to raise my head back to its accustomed position just above my shoulders, but I stopped halfway as my eyes met Jezebel's.

I knew she had raised many eggs successfully, and she knew I needed her help more than anything with this new baby. Our eyes remained connected as she began to walk. She looked away briefly to watch her footing as continued, and that was the end of our unspoken conversation. She perched herself atop my egg, incubating it with her body heat. She ruffled her feathers uncomfortably, but soon became more relaxed. I knew she was still angry at me, but our relationship had to be put on hold in this time of crisis. It was funny how having another child could turn my life upside down in an instant. She glanced at me icily, but gave up on that disposition in favour of pecking at her feathers.

I exited the coop with a tear slipping down my furry cheek, for I knew that child belonged to Jezebel just as much as it belonged to me. That long-passed moonlit night we spent together in the pasture seemed like so long ago. Things could have been much happier if we focused on our love for each other when we used to date, instead of only paying attention to our work… For the whole day I thought about how things could have been different. I worked desperately at the barn to compensate for oversleeping, right up until I finally went to sleep again.

* * *

In the middle of night I was woken up by a loud thud against the wall of my barn. I bolted upright, realizing that I was under attack. The attacker's specialty was striking at night, in packs, in an attempt to pillage my business. _Tomorrow I dine on raccoon stew_, I declared, readying myself for a war against the furry scavengers of the night. I stormed out of the barn in full battle gear and let loose a tremendous battle cry, but I realized I was not staring at a ravenous pack of raccoons at all! That was probably for the benefit of tomorrow's stew, for you see I am a vegetarian.

There before me stood my Claire, rubbing her eyes and looking like an overtired sack of potatoes. She was at least dressed like a sack of potatoes, in her ratty blue and purple pyjamas that sported many different fraying threads. Her frizzy blonde hair drooped over her shoulders in a tangled mess that ended just over her modest breasts. Her tiny stature paled in comparison to my enormous frame, and any other puny human would be horrified to stand where she was standing. But we were pretty tight home-G's, so it was all good in our hood.

I should explain the situation. Claire had a bit of a unique issue; on several occasions I had caught her sleepwalking—she left her house in a groggy state and returned to bed sometimes close to an hour later, not remembering any of it. She got so entranced that sometimes she even left the farm! I feared for her safety at night, and could only hope that she didn't harm herself ever.

"Where am I… Why do you have a colander on your head, cow?" I think Claire was admiring my prized war ensemble as she came to her senses. She was torn out of her sleepy trance by my fearsome war cry. The whole town must have been shaking in their boots at the sound of it, actually.

I had her remove the armour from my head as she oriented herself. She was awake and fully conscious by the time she held my colander helmet in her hands, but she was still vulnerable, as her body was still set to sleep mode. She wailed: "Not again… no! Why can't I just… be… normal…"

She fell against me and began to trickle salt water onto my fur. _You know Claire, I just washed this coat,_ I thought, but it was not like she knew any better. I let her sob away into my side; I desperately wanted to calm her down.

Truthfully, Claire was very sensitive about her sleep-walking 'condition'. Every time that I woke up in time to catch her in the act, when she snapped out of her trance she would become hysterical! I wanted to avoid putting her under excessive mental stress, so sometimes if I was not too sleepy I would just follow her to make sure she didn't hurt herself before she returned to her bed.

A week earlier, there was one such night:

* * *

That particular night, I was up all night with thoughts of Jezebel keeping me awake, when I heard Claire's door open and close, at such an atypical hour. My thoughts were disorganized, and I had no chance of sleeping, so I got up to investigate my human's night-time scampering and make sure she didn't put herself into any danger.

She left the farm, and headed towards town, with a demeanour that even in her sleep seemed practiced. She swung a quick right towards the inn. The cobblestone path was eerily lit by towering lampposts, their yellowish light casting unreal shadows in impossible directions. Shrubs lined the path, and I examined them vigilantly as I walked twenty paces behind her. Even I could admit I was jumpy, but I had to protect my Claire, without having her wake up.

I watched to make sure she didn't walk into any walls or lamp posts but she had no trouble navigating the simple path we were heading forward on. As she approached the inn, Claire began to act strangely. With the same confidence that she sleepily paraded towards the inn with, she circumvented the main entrance in favour of going around to the side of the inn and—_oh no_. She began to _climb_ and before I could catch up to her and stop her she was well out of my reach, at the second story window, hanging onto the wooden trellis. She climbed up with the tips of her feet balancing in thin diamond shaped holes between the wooden struts in a situation that could only be described as "precarious".

Her eyes were half open. She stood there motionless with her face pressed against the window for what felt like hours, but couldn't have actually been more than a few minutes. Her breath left a frosted patch on the window in the cold summer night's air, and she drew a primitive shape in the window while smiling an endearing smile, but it didn't seem genuine. Suddenly, a loud, manly scream from inside.

For a brief instant, I thought Claire had been fully conscious; her eyes opened fully at the first sound of the red-haired boy's cries of protest, but then she regressed back to her sleep state, even as she fell from her perch on the second story. I couldn't catch her in time, but she didn't seem very badly injured, having landed on the relatively soft lawn below. _That will properly smart for her tomorrow morning_, I cringed.

The man with the messy red hair was still shouting from the other side of the window Claire had occupied moments before. His tired eyes suggested he had been sleeping on the other side of the window, on top of the fact the he was shirtless and had cute yellow and white striped pyjama bottoms on. He sounded irate.

Claire climbed upon my back, still without acknowledging my presence. She turned towards the male: "I just _love_ you Gray! You're… so….s-so….." She giggled while staring sleepily at the horror struck male on the second story of the inn. "…so…" she paused and stared at the man as if she was colorblind, and he was a Rubix cube, then sleepily turned to me seemingly having completed what she intended to say to the red-haired shirtless human.

"…KYAHH!" she unexpectedly dug her heels into my sides and leaned in close to me, kicking me into gear and streamlining our bodies for my record-breaking sprint back to the farm all at once. I was happy to get her back to her bed in double-time before she had any other opportunities to injure herself.

We were chased by the piercing screams of the red-topped male human from his window. He seemed like an angry human. Other townspeople poked their heads out of their homes to see what the commotion was all about. We passed by a home where a middle aged lady with straight black hair looked on the scene with content before we finally arrived at the farm. I was panting heavily, having just sprinted for over a kilometre. Claire lackadaisically dismounted from my back and returned to her bed. She pulled the covers over her head and instantly began snoring peacefully, blissfully unaware that her night-time "hobby" had been discovered.

Weirdest. Slave. Ever.

* * *

**A/N: **_Special thanks to _**AshRB**_ for pointing out that the story is set in Mineral town, not Castanet as I arbitrarily decided whilst writing the first paragraph of the story. I changed the first chapter to reflect the proper setting. I'm taking a more structured approach to writing this now, so there shouldn't be any more loopholes or continuity errors :)_

**To Iris, winter oak, XYV, AshRB and blacksunset1214: **Merry Christmas and happy holidays! Thank you for providing feedback on chapter 2, getting helpful reviews each chapter lets me know what the reading public wants!

**Stay tuned **for chapter 4!


	4. Ironbone Johnson

**Disclaimer**: I own Harvest Moon. Also the regular moon. Please send provisions, there isn't much food up here. My post address is:

Lavender Cookie  
Copyright Investigation Department  
100 Moon Street  
PO Box 3001 STN-A  
New Toronto, Moon

More protein=faster updates.

* * *

Claire stopped sleeping for the most part. Her work became sluggish, but she was able to mostly keep up with everything she needed to do for me. She was working for the better part of 18 hours a day and only allowed herself to have a nap if someone made sure she wouldn't wake up and sleep walk. Her human friends visited during the day when they could to watch over her.

In this way, she got to be close with the girl who worked at the inn, who was around Claire's age. She would come to Claire's house often and although Claire would sleep for most of the time they spent together, a friendship formed between them. If Claire ever got up to sleepwalk, her friend would wake her up, then send her back to bed. Their new bond resulted in Claire spending leisure time at the inn on weekends.

In other world news, Jezebel successfully hatched the egg I brought to her, and it was a beautiful baby boy. It looked a lot like a baby chicken, but lots of baby cows look like that when they are just born, I guessed.

Anyhow, it was a Saturday night, and I had finished work at the barn, so I decided to join Claire at the inn for a drink. It was my turn to have the kid that day, so I let the little chick jump up on my shoulder and headed into town to the inn with the kid in tow. I named him Bjorn, after my favourite uncle.

I walked through the open doors to find three familiar faces, and one I had never seen before. First, Claire was sitting at a table, looking dreadful with her pale face accented by bags under her heavy eyes. My sleepy slave was sitting with my male slave (who had not _once_ shown up to work… I was considering firing him at that point) as well as another male, with long brown hair tied back in a ponytail and a downcast look that made me think he had a timid disposition.

The redheaded girl from the inn whom Claire had befriended was taking the orders of her three customers. Claire was the first to notice I had entered the inn, and the other three humans noticed soon after. Claire's dead expression curved her half open mouth upward into a genuine smile, as she greeted me beaming like a vaguely conscious child with her eyes still half closed, "Hi cow!"

The other three people stirred up in a concerned conversation as soon as I approached the table but Claire didn't seem to participate in that noise.

"Don't worry Ann, he's very house-broken" Claire said with no emotion, her mouth returning to its half-open state. The girl working at the inn frowned.

"Well okay Claire, but only because he's so cute!" The barkeep said, and tapped me on the nose. I tapped her back with my nose, and we bonded, quicktimes.

My male slave piped up, "You know, some religions worship cows, and let them roam freely all the time!" _Shaddup guy you're not the boss of me_. _That guy, he doesn't show up to work and he has the nerve to show up drinking with me on a Saturday. Did he think he'd score brownie points with the boss? Puh-_lease. "Anyways Ann, I'll have the usual." He said.

The redhead sighed. "One brass chalice full of wine, coming up. What about you two?" _I'll have a whiskey please, no ice. None for the baby, thanks._

Claire seemed disinterested, and the other male, who I decided I'd name "Cliff", mumbled some sounds to the redheaded barkeep. As for that same redheaded barkeeper, I decided to call her Omar "Ironbone" Johnson.

"Two waters, comin' up." Omar cutely scurried behind the bar counter, and Cliff relaxed and shifted his weight backwards into his seat.

Speaking of naming people, I called my male human slave 'Carter'. It's a biblical name, so it only seemed fitting since I believed he was a pastor for some elementary faith system that humans had developed. Carter means "Moo" in the ancient language that the cow bible was written in, and I thought that that was a fairly apt description of the pastor. It captured the essence of his sheepish personality, while hinting at the bold interior that I believed to be lying dormant inside of him. Carter, the bible character, was super lazy though. Go figure, eh.

As Omar Johnson returned with drinks for her friends, she leaned in to say something to Claire: "So how is the insomnia, Claire, are you doing well? And… what's the deal with the rumour about you stalking Gray?" Claire sleepily moaned at the sounds.

"Insomnia's… jammin' yo. An' Gray… I don't even like him, Ann! He's a weirdo and he yells too much. He disrespects me and is antisocial. But yes I stalk him _while I sleep_, if _that's_ what you're asking, dork." She drew out "_while I sleep'_ sarcastically as if she was mocking Omar. At any rate, whatever Claire said earned her worried looks from her friends at the table.

Just then, the sound of a male human clearing its throat could be heard coming from the stairway. It was the redheaded boy that Claire stalked while she slept that yelled too much and disrespected her and was a weirdo. I call him Gray, because cattle can't see "red" or hues of "red" so his hair looked kind of grey. I didn't read too much into my logic, because I often times didn't have time for such things as logic. _What even _is_ 'red'? WHATEVER! _My brain began to hurt, so I was thankful for the distraction of Gray approaching the table.

"A-are you awake?" Gray said to Claire, very nervously.

Claire straightened up, and in the process drooled a bit, but she caught it with her elbow which was on the table in an elegant maneuver. "Yeaaaaah. What d'you want?" she slurped.

"I-I was just coming to see what the fuss was about down here!" Gray said, looking angry and turning pink in the face. [_Do I know 'pink'? Well whatever, that's what I call the special shade of grey I saw his face turn.]_

As Gray was sat down, Omar Johnson served him a drink of whiskey. "Thanks Ann." _Umm 'scuse me Gray, I think you got my order by accident so… _I stared at Gray expectantly.

Gray turned away from my gaze to meet Claire's sleepy eyes, "I'm still angry about seeing you outside my window, but… I won't bring it up for tonight. It's just too weird to think about." He shuddered.

Claire nodded silently, looking disinterested, and Gray seemed shot down.

"Hey what's the matter with you Claire? I thought you'd… be friendlier considering…" Gray blushed that fine shade of grey I've come to know as 'Tuscan red'. "Uh… anyways…You look awful" he added, smiling.

"I-donwannatalk'boutit" Claire exhaled, just managing to hold her head above her shoulders.

The group of humans continued their babbling to each other, while I became more interested in the grass that Omar Johnson brought me. She was probably my best friend. Claire was next best maybe, but Omar was a bit nicer. I continued chewing my grass for a while until I noticed that the rowdy group of humans were beginning to get tipsy off of their drinks, and none of them noticed Claire had fallen asleep.

_Oh man, she's out cold. Play it casual_, I told myself, for I saw Claire stand up quietly. She was sleepwalking, but no one seemed to be paying attention to her. She headed upstairs. It was my job to play it cool while Claire was upstairs, I didn't want to draw attention to the fact she wasn't in the room anymore.

"MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" I said, perhaps a bit too loudly in my forced attempt to be casual. The humans all looked at me and stopped chattering.

"Claire your cow is mooing… where's Claire?" Omar Johnson said. _I think they bought it,_ I smiled. I drew the attention away from Claire when she needed me most, just as expected from a world class CEO such as myself.

As if she had planned it perfectly, Claire came downstairs at that moment, with a framed picture of Gray in her hands; her eyes betrayed that she was still sleepwalking. Gray looked at her and said, "Where were you?" Upon hearing that, Claire woke up!

"Huh… What?" Claire said.

"I said your cow is acting funny… where were you?"

Claire looked down at the picture she held in her hands, then back at Gray, and repeated that motion twice. She then hid it behind her back. "Uhhhh. Bathroom."

"Well sit back down!" Gray said.

"I can't… I need to… stand… against the wall." Claire moved towards a wall, her hands still behind her back.

"You're so weird, Claire"

Claire paused awkwardly. "I have to go… upstairs… Be right back!" she quickly darted away, hiding the picture of Gray.

Gray got up to follow her, but was interrupted by Carter's drunken raving. He was pretty wasted; _what a truly lazy worker_, I thought.

Claire showed up downstairs a minute later, smiling and seeming more energetic than her sleep deprivation let on. "Hi." She said.

"You know, Claire," Gray started "I like you better when you're not stalking me."

Claire slapped Gray in the face with her hand "Ugh, don't talk to me, jerk." She seemed annoyed, and like she was going to continue, but then she was interrupted by the drunken Carter.

"You… two-*hic*- are so cute… together." Claire and Gray blushed profusely.

"No we're not, ew!" Claire exclaimed.

"That's absurd, I'd sooner have a restraining order against this weirdo" Gray added, rubbing his cheek.

Carter looked bewildered. "…I was talking to _these_ two" he slurred, as he gestured dramatically with arms, pointing to Omar and myself while eying Claire and Gray contemptuously.

"What's your problem? Go home, you're drunk." Omar shouted as she finished up feeding me some grass.

Cliff said words to Omar, looking apologetic, and then helped Carter walk home. That left Gray, Claire, Omar and me alone in the inn's bar. Omar started talking sweetly: "Well, I think it's time to call it a night- Oh my god, CLAIRE!"

Just then, Claire fainted, and hit her head on the table on her way down. She was bleeding, but it was nothing terribly serious. She didn't get up. After a minute or so, Gray rushed to the telephone.

A while later a man in a white coat came and carried Claire out of the building with the help of Gray. _Just return her back in time to bring the fodder into the barn!_ I called out after them: "Moooo~"

Soon after that occurred, Omar Johnson walked me home. The stars were shining brightly, and the summer night's breeze was cool as it flowed through my fur. I looked at Omar and she smiled sweetly at me. _We're so cute together, _I thought, and smiled back.

* * *

**A/N: [completely skip if you don't like biology… you know who you are!]**

Cows can't perceive red light, because they only have blue and yellow light receptors in their eyes. This means that they see the world the same way that a red-green colour-blind human would. So describing red hair becomes a problem, I hope you accept the solution I offered for that!

As a side note, if anyone were to write a story from a chicken's perspective, they would be able to make up colours! Birds have blue, yellow and red receptors, which is everything that humans have. Using those three receptors our brain can detect any colour that you can name. But in addition to those three, they also have _another_ receptor that detects ultraviolet light, which is the form of light that comes after red, yellow and blue (infrared would come before—and some animals can see infrared… like snakes!). Anyways, that means that they can see colours that humans can't; it would be fun to try and describe them, don't you agree?

If that weren't enough, birds also have a _fifth_ light receptor, whose function isn't definitively known. Some evidence suggests that it detects motion, essentially giving birds an extra colour spectrum _and _HD vision compared to our standard definition vision.

I wonder what Jezebel sees that our lovable cow cannot… Until next time! Thanks for reading :)


	5. Greener Pastures

**A/N** Hello lovely readers! Thanks for your feedback as always, it really does help. To those of you who were interested in further biology facts, I didn't include one this time because it wouldn't have been relevant to the story, but I will next time! Leave comments or PM me about anything biology related you'd like to learn about too! :3

* * *

Omar and I really bonded the night that Claire collapsed. Five days had passed since then, and Claire still hadn't returned. Thankfully after Omar finished her full-time work at the inn, she came to replace Claire's most essential duties. Still, we barn animals had to graze in the pasture for food and make other sacrifices. Grazing outside allowed less time to be in the office, which meant lower productivity. Life was busy. It was a small miracle that the raccoons didn't attack—if they did, I would have been bested, and forced to concede food to them.

Everything was harder without Claire's help. Working outside was difficult, and sleeping outside, though it was summer and the weather was comfortable, was still somewhat unsettling. Every night I would stand watchfully in my battle gear, awaiting the racoons, or any other predators of the night, but luckily they never came.

By the time I satisfied myself that the barn animals were safe, I was so riled up on adrenaline that I could hardly even sleep. I tried to count sheep, but I only have four of them, and whenever I finished counting them I'd get nervous. _What if I wake up and there are only three sheep left to count_, I would think, shuddering at the fantasy of the raccoons dragging Minty, my newest sheep intern, away into the night.

That afternoon, after Omar was done her part-time work on the farm, she looked exhausted. She went to the stable where my horse worked, presumably in an attempt to ride the inferior animal. Bad idea. The horse, Jenkins, was under a great deal of stress because he was up to his neck in paperwork—a result of the decreased productivity of the barn.

When Omar tried to mount the stressed stallion, Jenkins finally caved under all the stress. He reared up, kicked with his hind legs in Omar's general direction and ran for the hills. I saw him jump the farm's fence and run away towards the horizon, in search of a better life in the country. That was the third horse we lost that year, making it the worst year in the barn's history for our stable division. And you thought that _you_ had trouble with stable employment. Think how I must have felt! Horses aren't exactly cheap, you know.

I sighed, and decided I too would take a break, lest I end up like poor Jenkins. I needed some real _me_ time. I walked up to the downtrodden innkeeper. _A date, perhaps?_

Omar got back on her feet after her run in with Jenkins, and looked at up at me as I approached her. I faced her and smiled from ear to ear, my eyes becoming slits as I beamed. I made a primitive motion with my head up and towards my back. As it turned out, humans didn't understand sign language, as she clearly didn't get the message—that I wanted her to hop on my back so we could go on an adventure together.

After a few hesitant minutes, however, I somehow managed to get her onto my back, and we were off. She seemed really shaky, so I took it slow while I was walking. She was probably exhausted from tending the inn full time as well as doing farm work for the last few days. She deserved a break, even if she was a slave. That was the kind of bond I had with my animals; it was kind of beautiful.

I walked towards the town for a while, but when it came time to take a right turn towards the inn, the formerly placid Omar became unsettled. "No cow, No! We're going _this_ way!" She raved, leaning as hard as she could to the left, seemingly suggesting that we go straight on the path towards the town instead of turning toward the inn. I decided to go in the direction the human wanted to go; it was all of a sudden sort of exciting. '_Did you plan something special for me, Omar?' _I thought, blushing. O_h, you, tee-hee._

We continued on through the quiet town until Omar motioned for us to stop. I graciously complied and lowered my head so that she could dismount from my beautiful muscular bod. I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the window of the town's clinic and looked away coyly. _That's one nice hunk of beef_.

Omar entered the clinic and I waited. I went around the side of the building to see if I could get a view of what was going on inside.

I looked in a small square window that was at my eye level to see Claire lying on a white bed, surrounded by people: the man in the white coat who took her away when she fainted, Gray and Omar.

Looking genuinely exhausted, yet still concerned, Omar pulled a chicken out of the back pack she was wearing. I heard her say something like, "I hope you get well soon Claire… I brought you a get well soon gift! It's just a stuffed animal rick gave me two years ago for secret Santa but, I figured since you like chickens you might like it."

"Mmmm, yeah they're delicious." Claire responded. "Thanks Ann. For the gift, and for coming here too, it means a lot to me."

Gray piped up: "So, why did you make me meet you here, Ann?" Omar jabbed Gray in the ribs with her elbow.

The four humans talked for a while and I got bored of watching them, so I began eating some nearby grass. It tasted bitter; it was nothing like the sweet, crispy blades Claire prepared for us on the farm.

After my subpar snack, I returned to watch what was going on inside. The man in the white coat had left; the three remaining humans sat talking. "I've been on a drug to treat my insomnia but… I can't keep taking it. It makes me feel tired all the time, and then I'm useless for the whole day. I still feel a little sick, but the doctor says I can be discharged tomorrow morning."

"That's great news, Claire" Omar said.

"That's… good. So long as you're getting better." Gray managed.

Gray looked at Omar, then at Claire, and then took a long look at Omar again. He swallowed hard, bent forward and embraced Claire awkwardly. She was lying upright on a pillow in her bed, and Gray was in a standing position to her side, so it looked uncomfortable from my point of view. His face darkened and he pulled away. _Did they… do it… just now?_ I had very little knowledge about human mating rituals, so naturally, the behaviour seemed bizarre to me. At any rate, it looked like Claire was getting along with the other humans. I was happy, because nobody was friends with Claire. That is, except for me!

"I'm so happy that I have two wonderful friends like you!" Claire exclaimed, with glossy eyes that looked genuinely glad.

"We'll always be there for you, Claire. Isn't that right, Gray?" Omar imposed upon the sheepish Gray.

"R-right. Roger that." He stood up straighter as he finished speaking.

They sat around talking for a few minutes. The only thing that changed during that time was that every once and a while someone would say something and Gray's complexion would darken. Also worthy of note is that all traces of Claire's sadness appeared to be gone in those moments.

Finally, Gray got up to leave; Omar stayed by Claire's bedside, presumably because she was still exhausted. Omar leaned close to Claire's head from her chair, and the two of them shared the pillow in silence, not caring about the uncomfortable positions both of their bodies were contorted into.

As Gray left the clinic, something awe inspiring, _magnificent_ and enchanting caught his eye and he simply couldn't leave the spectacle alone. _Heh_, it was my biceps.

He came around the side of the clinic and grabbed my necklace wordlessly. He walked with me all the way back to the farm. _What a gentleman_, I thought as I began to warm up to him.

* * *

The following day, Claire returned to the farm, much to everyone's relief. She was working again. She surveyed what needed to be done. "Yo, where's my horse?"

_I missed you too,_ _Claire_. I booped her with my nose. She looked annoyed but she was smiling. She bent down, and pulled up a couple handfuls of grass. "You need to eat, you're getting skinny, pal! You've got to stay plump for the cow festival!"

She held her right hand up to my mouth, and I ate the grass from it. She still had grass in her left hand; she took a look at me and then shoved it inelegantly into her mouth. Blades jutted out from the corners of her full mouth, and she giggled as she chewed. "It's sweet!" She laughed.

Her eyes were genuine and she looked like the happiest monkey in the jungle. _Silly human, you can't eat cow food!_ I thought, but let it slide, just once. She laughed, and chewed with her mouth open for a while. When she finally regained her composure, she just looked at me, and then hugged me. It was nice of her not to get salt water all over me like she usually did, because I was keeping my coat nice and sleek for the cow festival that was taking place the next week.

It was getting late, so I started to prepare for bed. Claire was still holding the chicken that Omar gave her, and it was starting to creep me out. It kept staring at me, like it was in love with my body or something. _Sorry girl, I'm a family man now. _I thought, with my newborn son in mind. _This bull's ship has sailed! _Claire eventually moved, breaking the chicken's line of sight with me. I forgot about the weird chicken, and fell asleep happy, because Claire was home.


	6. Festivals and Merriment

**A/N: **School's starting again! I will still be updating regularly, not update until the summer because of university woooo, so check back often! Or you could follow the story for email alerts, it's convenient! :3 kekekeke

* * *

It was the day of the cow festival, and everyone in town had gathered in the square. There were around 30 different cows from barns all over the region participating that year. Claire was talking with Gray and Omar, who were both to the side of me. The two of them were visiting us, because we were busy backstage preparing for the cattle judging contest. Claire and I were unable to enjoy the attractions that were available for townsfolk in the square, which was sad. Some girl came to distract Omar's attention from me, and after they had a short conversation they split from our group, leaving me alone with Claire and Gray.

Shortly after Omar left with the unnamed female, yet another girl, this one with silky jet black hair that barely spilled over her shoulders, approached us. She sported round glasses that magnified her dark grey eyes, making their size look just a little bit unnatural but not at all unpleasant. Her black skirt and white blouse gave her a very refined and formal style… for a puny human female, that is. Mary is the name I call her by, these days. She walked past me and stopped closer to Gray than Claire, but paid equal respect to both of them.

A scent trailed behind her with a slight delay. It reminded me of the subtle creamy lemon scent lingering in the air of an extravagant wedding; a scent that would be enjoyed by most anyone from the bridesmaids to the children… Magnificent sensory experience as it was though, it would also remind the people in attendance that the groom's mother was severely allergic to fragrances, and was thus unable to attend the wedding for fear of death: an embarrassing oversight on the part of the wedding planner. Mary's genuine smile and bubbly disposition softened the scent's bitterness though, and as a result the imagery evoked by her perfume actually enhanced the experience of meeting her.

"Hi Gray, hi Claire" Mary said as she entered the conversation. "Oh, I adore your cow; he looks like he's deep in thought… like he is contemplating something so vast yet so simple that we as humans will never breach his understanding of it."

She stared into my eyes meaningfully and I returned her gaze, chewing grass loudly as drool snaked its way out of the corner of my mouth. _Freakin' _love_ grass, _I thought as I chewed it automatically.

"Hi Mary!" Claire exclaimed. The two girls briefly hugged and then Gray chuckled as he noticed Mary smoothing her ruffled hair with her hands afterwards to return it to its perfect order. Claire and Mary appeared to be close friends. Normally I would think it odd for someone to be so close to Claire without my knowledge, but from the clean, refined look that Mary had, I could see why she might not enjoy ever coming to the farm. Claire probably visited her on days when she went into town instead of having Mary over to the farm. "How are things at the library?" Claire continued.

"It's been really lonely lately. You and Gray are the only people who regularly come to read." Mary's pretty face looked sad, but she bounced back in a peppy way, "but I've gotten a lot of work done on my Harry Potter slash—I mean _novel_!" She said blushing furiously and looking bashfully at Gray, who didn't appear to notice.

Gray remained mostly quiet as the conversation progressed, and eventually I got bored of watching so I socialized with the other cattle instead. Things seemed to be going reasonably well at everyone's barn, except for a few barns losing their horses due to stress from overwork.

Unfortunately, I met up with _Judith_, the snarky cow from a neighbouring town that was always so stuck up. She inherited her barn from her father, and pretended like she was better than me just because her barn was marginally more profitable. It really steamed me up! We were speaking at the time when suddenly she issued a challenge. "Moo," she dared to say.

That was it. If Judith wanted a smack down she was going to get it. "Moo" I retorted, fuming with anger but not letting it show. "Moo! _Moo._"

There was no going back from that one. The fight was on, and I was on a roll too: "Moo" _I'll see you when the judging starts, fatty!_ Judith was speechless, and all the other contestants were staring at me. I returned to Claire's side, fired up and ready to win.

Finally, the time for the judging came so all the cows gathered their humans to their sides in preparation. I didn't like the way the humans' prying eyes judged me, but it was all necessary in the pursuit of glory. Claire sweetly talked to the humans that were judging the contest. Despite her defeated face that betrayed the fact that she desperately lacked sleep, she seemed spry and the judges looked impressed with her words. "He's a bit fat, don't you think?" one of the judges said, and the other nodded in agreement. I flexed my guns for the whole time, but the judges pretended not to notice and eventually moved on to judging the next contestant. I waited anxiously for the results.

* * *

The festival had ended. Just as the sun began to set, I found myself walking home with Claire. It was my first time competing in a contest, and Judith had years of experience with cow festivals, so the winner didn't surprise me. Well, I was the winner, so naturally one can't really surprise oneself, eh. _Booyah!_

I became the most popular cow in the region that day. Even Judith, my rival, winked at me as she left. At least I thought she winked at me, I was looking at her from the side so I only saw one of her eyes. At any rate, the statistics didn't lie: 9 out of 10 cows wanted to be me and the tenth cow probably wanted me to be its dad. But despite my fame, I couldn't go around living a life of excess; I was a tied down bull. My thoughts drifted towards my child, Bjorn.

On the walk home, we were a few minutes' walk past the inn when my mind was brought back to the present by Gray, who was running to catch up with me and Claire. "Congratulations," He yelled as he caught up to us. The three of us stopped walking once he reached us and we began to stand around. "He looks good…" Gray said quietly, looking at Claire but patting me on the side, as high up as he could comfortably reach in a natural position.

Claire, who was already exhausted before the festival, wordlessly turned slowly to face Gray. She opened her mouth as if to say something, but just exhaled heavily instead, producing a sound reminiscent of a low growl as her eyes grew heavy.

"Uh, I guess you must be tired…" Gray said slowly, as he seemed to understand she wasn't all there. Claire did not react. "_Claire!_" He yelled, which caused Claire to jump exaggeratedly as her eyes widened.

"Hey… Gray... Whaddaya want?" Claire drawled.

Gray was noticeably getting annoyed. He spoke in a slightly-too-loud voice: "I'm going to the beach late tonight, there's supposed to be a meteor shower at around three. I'm looking for people to come along , and since you don't sleep really… you might as well join up. Meet at the inn at two-thirty tonight, then we'll head over to the beach." He had a serious look on his face.

"Sounds good. Hey did you know you can ride cattle?" Claire's eyes darted around nervously, scanning her surroundings but largely ignoring Gray. I couldn't tell why, nor did I ever understand why she stood up on the balls of her feet with her hands held out in front of herself defensively.

"Uh, that sounds really dangerous Claire." Gray said.

"No… no it's fine with this guy," she patted me, I mooed. "He just wants to help out. He even let Ann ride on him. Just help me up, I don't have enough energy to do it on my own." Claire appeared to be losing her alertness.

The two humans shuffled around, then all of the sudden, Gray cupped Claire's boot and boosted her onto my back._ You know you should ask before you just jump on someone_, I thought. However, I felt sorry for my tiny human, who felt like a lifeless sack as her arms draped over my beefy shoulders. She weighed very little, so it made almost no difference to me whether or not she was on my back. She meekly yelled: "Kyah!" and tried to signal her intent to go forward by tapping me with her boots. The force with which she kicked into my side was more akin to a dog's floppy ears returning to the side of its face after a gentle breeze blew them upwards; I barely felt a thing, but I started to slowly walk forward anyways.

Claire and Gray said their goodbyes, with Gray retiring towards the inn. I carried Claire back to the farm, where she stumbled off of my back. "Thanks cow," she said heavily, looking up at me with eyelids that were teetering between just barely uncovering her pupils and being fully closed. As the sun was just setting she went to her house, and I visited Jezebel and Bjorn at the chicken coop.

* * *

I woke up in the dead of night. My first thought was that the raccoons were afoot, but I heard human voices, and my mind was put at ease. _Come to think of it, it's been a long time since I've been attacked by raccoons,_ I thought. I went outside into the chilly night to investigate the trespassers.

I was relieved to see that it was just Gray and Mary. "…Claire, is everything okay?" Mary said softly, while knocking on the entrance to Claire's house.

There was no response from Claire. Gray spoke: "Maybe… you know. Something happened to her." The two trespassing humans looked concerned.

After knocking at the door for a few minutes, Gray opened the door slowly. Just as the two concerned humans began to enter, Claire popped out of the house and into my view. She was wearing her ratty pyjamas. There were new holes in her pyjamas, in excess of what one would expect from normal use. Her top looked like it had been ripped by a tree branch or two while sleep walking. _And is that… A claw mark?_ I thought, admiring the three long parallel rips near her shoulder.

"Good…evening? …Afternoon? Sorry, I was napping, is it time to go already?" Claire chirped.

"Don't you have any sense of time? It's the middle of the night… nearly sunrise too, Claire. Are you feeling okay?" Mary said, looking motherly in the way she appraised Claire's state.

"We saw the meteor shower, it was crazy!" Gray chimed in, his sombre state vanishing in favour of almost child-like excitement. Mary's brow furrowed, and she stole an annoyed glance at Gray, but then turned back to Claire.

"As soon as it's morning I'm taking you to the Doctor, you can't keep pushing yourself so hard." Mary said to Claire looking concerned.

"Are you kidding? I feel great! If we're not going to check out the meteor shower then I'm going to get a head start on my chores." Claire said. Swinging into action, she returned into her small house. "Don't look, I'm changing!" She yelled, causing Gray to immediately swivel and face away from the house.

While Claire was away, Mary turned to Gray: "She really doesn't pay much attention to you, does she?"

"Yeah, but…" Gray started, and then faded away. "She's at my window practically every night. If it's not because she wants something from me, why do you think she does that?" He looked at Mary, vehemently curious.

"She's not well, Gray. Don't judge her personality by her illness—and that's what it is, an _illness_. You can't draw any connections between her personality during waking life and what she does when she is asleep. That isn't fair to her, or you," Mary pleaded.

Claire came out of her house clad in her overalls and baggy T-shirt, to find an unconvinced Gray and an annoyed Mary.

"I'm going to go back to sleep. It's too bad you couldn't see the stars with us, Claire. Stay well today… Don't die." Mary's faint sleepiness was showing as she spoke.

"Are you sure you don't want to stay? I'll heat you up some leftover raccoon pie for breakfast!"

"Oh gosh… we really should be going. Thank you very much for the offer Claire." Mary said, looking slightly green.

"Aw, okay. Take care, guys! See you later," Claire returned.

"See ya." Gray added curtly. He turned and left the farm to walk Mary home.

When the two guests left, Claire began working with great efficiency, especially around the barn, which made it hard for me to sleep. I stayed up with her, and after and hour of her working the sun rose. I went outside to breathe some fresh air in the pasture, and start my day.

_Jezebel should be up by now_, I thought. I paused, and then as I watch Claire working diligently, I decided to put work on hold for just that one day, and I went to go see my family.

* * *

**Biology Note**: **Mad Cow Disease**

[This is **unrelated to the story**, but I hope it can add some interesting background to it!]

Mad Cow disease makes cow brains turn to mush, and kills them. It's all because of a tiny, tiny particle called a protein.

Proteins are so small, you'd need a very, very powerful microscope to even see one. There are trillions of proteins inside every animal. Each specific protein has a very specific function. For example, there are proteins that act as "doorways", so that things such as water or vitamin C can be exchanged throughout the body.

Proteins need to be _folded_ in a certain way to work properly. If they are not folded properly they will most likely not work. If a normal protein gets unfolded, again, it will probably not work anymore.

However, sometimes, if you take a protein that is working properly (or, _folded_ properly) and unfold it, instead of simply not working, it will do something that it isn't supposed to do. This is what happens in "Mad cow disease"—a specific type of protein that is found in animal brains gets unfolded.

Normally, that protein's function is to make a healthy brain. But when you unfold it, it turns into a bad protein. Its new function is to unfold the proteins that make a healthy brain. It only takes one protein, which is a million times smaller than the head of a pin, to slowly change all the good proteins into bad ones. When that is happening the brain slowly gets destroyed, and the cow will die.

The particular protein I am talking about is called the "prion" protein. It is a particular type of protein that can be turned into a bad protein that destroys animal brains. And guess what? If you eat part of a cow that has mad cow disease, your brain will be slowly turned to mush too! It's called Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans, but it is the exact same thing as mad cow disease.

still be updating regularly, so check back often! Or you could follow the story for email alerts, it's convenient! :3 kekekeke


	7. A Letter from Claire

**A/N: Hey everyone! This [ultra-short] chapter is meant to summarize the main goings on of the first six chapters, and set the stage for the next one! So, you don't need to scroll back and re-read anything! I wouldn't subject you to that ;)**

**By the way, Sorrrry for the long delay, I hope you haven't forgotten this story! As an update in my life (not an excuse for lateness) I just graduated from university and got a job teaching English in Japan! I make my trans-pacific move at the start of August. I'll have internet and a lot of free time over there living in the country, so HM fan fiction is back on track! **

**Until I re-locate, I am "working" for my city in Canada, which translates into sitting in a room with another kid for 8 hours, doing whatever we want, and then going home. As such, I have a lot of time to write! I hope to increase the quality of my stories as well :) I've already started chapter 8; so you'll receive a long chapter in a few days instead of this dinky summary.**

**Enjoy, and thanks as always for your reviews. Tell me what you like and don't like! Let's have a talk about it, even :D **

* * *

_Dear Gray,_

_I hope you and Mary had fun watching the meteor shower together last night. Sorry I couldn't make it; I would've liked to see it too. I think it's cute that you went by yourselves though. Almost like a date!_

_But hey! At least I have a good excuse for not showing up… Last night I had the best sleep of my life—with no sleep walking! I haven't slept like that in two years. I feel like I'm getting better, but I don't know. /X\/__KeepXyourXwindowsX~/lockedXstill!/xX\\/ _

_Sorry this letter is messy now—I just had to scratch out a stupid joke I tried to make._

_Incidentally, I've taken to making it as hard as possible for me to exit the house when I'm sleeping. It adds an extra half-hour to my morning routine, but this way I am at least doing something to stop myself from bothering you and others when I 'sleep-walk'. Even still, Ann said I got out anyway at least one night since I started doing this. I'm doing the best I can, though. Just letting you know._

_But umm, thanks for checking up on me to make sure I was okay when I didn't show up last night. Not many people would do that for someone that they hate… I also haven't thanked you for coming to visit me when I was staying at the clinic. So, thanks. You're sweet. Ugh, this is awkward again, sorry._

_Anyway, since you invited me out with you guys last night, I figured I'd invite you to the shindig I'm having, or whatever. The addition to my house is going to be done by Friday of next week (the 21__st__) so we'll be celebrating then; Mary and Cliff already said they are coming. Ann said she will come if she gets the time off from waitressing at the inn. So, if you came along too we'd be at an even five._

_Bring your own drinks, obviously. Also, bring me one? I'm short on cash after paying for the addition. You don't have to though; just if you have extra. _

_Fitfully yours,_

_Claire ツ_

* * *

This letter was made by Claire, the human slave that works on my farm. I don't get what it's about, because I am a cow. Obviously. She seemed really nervous as she took it towards the inn, where Gray lives, though. Maybe she was trying to communicate with him? But everyone knows that humans can't do real writing. _Dumb Claire_.

I usually let Claire visit other nearby humans at the inn if she is not too tired. She does not sleep well most of the time, so she is often too worn out to leave my farm. I can tell she really enjoys her quality time with all the humans that live around here, though.

Personally, I only leave the farm to visit Omar Johnson, the beautiful red-haired waitress who works at the inn! I should have you know that Omar and I are best friends, even though she's a human and I'm a bull.

Life for me these days is mostly dedicated to managing the barn that I own, and even my free time seems to be more and more focussed on tending to the animals that work for me.

My ex-girlfriend Jezebel is a chicken who runs the coop on the other side of the farm. Jezebel has taken full custody of my moody son, Bjorn. He's taking a lot after his mother lately. I wonder if it's too late to teach him what it means to be a proper bull… If only I had more time for family in the midst of all the stresses of my work, I might've taught him to be more respectful.

I was snapped out of my thoughts by Claire, who had just joined me in the barn. I marvelled at the unintelligible noises coming from her: "Hey guy!" Claire bubbled, facing me. She looked healthier than usual. I noticed her face had vibrant colour, and she moved around the barn freely, even going so far as to skip over to me when she saw me.

"Moo" she mimicked as she hugged me. Ha! It actually sounded like she was saying a real word! _Claire saying words… Imagine that!_ _Well _Moo_ to you too, young lady,_ I thought to myself humorously._ Now scamper on, I have a lot of work to do today._

Claire brushed me, the lingered around in the barn, tending to my sheep. Afterwards she bounced back out of the barn. _A talking human_, I mused ridiculously as I watched her leave. _How a_moo_sing!_


	8. Party Time

**A/N: Thank you so much for reading! Double thanks to:**

**umbreonix  
Tamaki11  
and Evil Icing **

**for following and/or favourite-ing! You all are the knees to my bees. :) :)**

**No chicken romance this chapter :(. Sorry to everyone who ships Cowzebel **

* * *

_Oh, my head!_ I woke up in the barn, but I wasn't sure of how I got there. I squeezed my clear glassy eyes tightly shut before opening them bravely. _The light—it _burns_._ My headache got worse as bright rays of sun poured into my eyes from outside of the barn. _This must be what it feels like to_ _die_. I tried to stand up, but quickly lay back down in the straw to resist my body's urge to throw up.

_What happened last night?_ I asked myself. After I willed away the pain in my head, all at once my memory engaged, and I once more felt sick to my stomach. _So thirsty. So tired._ "Mooo," I lamented.

* * *

The night before, I was minding my own business when Claire came back to the farm with Mary. The two were laughing together and causing a ruckus outside of my barn. I decided to check on them to see what they were up to.

Truthfully, I hadn't left the barn in a few days at that point. It's not exactly as if I thought Claire could take care of all the work outside by herself, but I was busy trying to maximize the return on my overseas wool investments. As it happens, my close eye on the market paid off, and I was left with an 8% gain on my investments, which was astronomical. After a week of long hours and fruitful efforts, the opportunity to go outside and just relax that Friday evening was a welcome one.

I walked over to Mary and Claire, and was met by Mary's shy but interested glances. Her magnified eyes betrayed her intrigue. Claire on the other hand, did not seem as interested in keeping my company. She mooed at me.

"Come on, guy-o. I'm having friends over tonight, go graze in the pasture. Go on! _Paaaaas_-ture," she said to me as she pushed against my front as hard as she could. I think she was trying to push me towards the pasture or barn, but I didn't want to go there. I wanted to play with Claire! I licked the top of her head, and it tasted like watermelon. _You little melon head_, I laughed to myself.

"Ahh! I just washed my hair a second ago! What are you trying to pull, cow?!" Claire once again addressed me. I didn't understand. "Come on we're going back to the barn." Claire climbed skilfully on top of me and signalled that she wanted me to turn and walk us away from the house.

_'Not gonna happen'_ was going through my head as I lay down on top of my legs, jostling Claire who was still on my back. _We get to play now! No more work!_ Claire heaved an exasperated sigh as she stepped off of my back.

Throughout this process, Mary was left quietly giggling with a rare smile crossing her face; she tried to return her lips to a neutral position, but that made her smile come back even stronger. "Can we play with him while we wait for the others to show up?" Mary asked.

"Ugh, fine. I'm just going to go get the cow spit out of my hair now… have fun with your new best friend," Claire said with a smile, her matted hair looking especially snazzy. She walked back to her house, and Mary tentatively approached me after shooting Claire a playfully annoyed expression.

_Hey wait a minute… was that always there?_ I thought as I eyed Claire's house suspiciously. Don't get me wrong, I knew she lived there, but I noticed a fresh looking room that looked mismatched with the rest of the aged cottage. Yes, I was sure of it, Claire had gotten her house extended!

_Why does she need such a big house? Maybe she is growing? _I wondered, trying to recount how tall humans typically grow. I blushed at the thought of a tall version of Claire that could brush that spot on my back that she can never normally reach. However, that thought was replaced by a massive itch in said spot. #cowproblems

Mary stood a little bit closer to me then, and she followed my gaze to the extended house. She turned to me and said, "there's a party tonight, sir," she smiled as she spoke. "...and I was wondering if you would be so kind as to join us?"

Claire called back from inside: "I thought you were on _my_ side Mare-bear!"

Mary chuckled, and then rolled her eyes. Over the course of next minute or so she began to inch closer to me awkwardly and finally worked up the courage to pet my snout. It felt nice to have such soft hands massaging my nose bones. As she gently moved this tips of her fingers back and forth over my course fur I focussed all my attention on the tickling sensations coming from my nose. I felt a sneeze coming on, but it would be a good few minutes until it actually materialized. I had everything under control.

I immediately shook my head violently as my mouth opened I sneezed the sneeze to end all sneezes, spraying saliva and mucus into the air.

"Eep!" Mary squeaked as she jumped backwards at lightening speed. I managed to turn my head away from her in time to save her from having to change her clothes. I was glad, because she was wearing a nice-looking pale orange summer dress and a light blue wide brimmed hat with a bow on it. It would have been a shame to ruin an outfit that seemed like it took Mary some effort to put together.

Claire called out to Mary. "Mary-Jane, can you help me with the food in here?"

Mary happily glided over to the new part of Claire's house, where Claire was setting out enough food for quite a lot of humans. You know, t_here's plenty of grass for everyone—really I don't mind,_ I thought. But if the humans wanted to eat their weird food, that was fine by me. It's not like I was offended or anything. I was just curious about what was so great about human food…

I sat and waited for Claire and Mary to come out and play, but they stayed preparing food indoors for quite a while. All the while, a few of the local humans came to the farm gradually. Cliff, Gray and Omar Johnson all came at the same time. I stood up to go say hi to them, and was greeted with a hug and fond stare from an enthusiastically smiling Omar. The other two continued inside without paying me any attention, and Omar hurriedly skipped off to catch up with them. "Wait—wait up!" She exclaimed, causing the two boys to stop and turn around to give her teasing half smiles. She conked their heads together jokingly. This may have been an attempt to combine their half-smiles into one big full-smile. I will have to research the validity of this theory at a later date.

I lazily ate grass while Claire and friends sat inside of the new room of her house. I peeked in through a window to investigate. A new, smallish single-sized bed was pushed up to the far wall of the room, and they had brought the dining table from the main cottage area into the room to arrange food on. The gathering of people was standing around the table, chatting and eating. All of the town's younger generation was packed into the slightly cozy room, smiling and laughing as they ate together. It looked super ultra boring. _Hello, there's this new thing called eating grass? Come on, people, I'll show you where the real party is at!_

I picked up a mouthful of grass and began to chew, in an attempt to start a trend among the party-goers. Unfortunately, this was as unsuccessful as my attempt get cardigans to catch on last fall. They didn't catch on. No one even sells cardigans in my size anymore. So I stood outside, alone, and in the cool of the summer night I didn't even have an article of clothing that could keep me warm—but not too warm.

After a while though, some of the party people came outside to enjoy the thrill of grass-sitting. Claire came out holding some of the nasty looking human food and a foreign guy wearing a purple bandana called out to Gray, "bring the punch out here, we're gonna get _drunk_! Whipee!" This was met be a hearty cheer from the inebriated crowd.

Gray placed a large bowl filled with a clear pinkish liquid on a nearby produce shipping bin and scooped up two cups of it for drinking. He then made walked off a few feet to join the crowd of his friends gathering around on the grass, and handed one cup to Cliff. Gray called out a toast of sorts, before he gulped the drink down with great satisfaction. Cliff looked nervously at his tipping friend, but did the same.

I happened to be near the shipping bin that was supporting the aforementioned beverage. Such a delightful odour came from the concoction! It smelled of pineapple and cherries. _I have got to try this! _I thought as a moved to the bowl.

As I stood over the lovely liquid, I hesitantly lapped up a small amount. _Delicious?_ I thought, pensively. Well, I couldn't really taste it that well from just a little sip. I resolved to take another quick sample and lapped up a few more little bits. _Ooooh, it's spiky in my mouth! _I thought, as the drink burnt my tongue in a mysterious way. Many little sips later, I had a solid grasp on the flavour profile of the punch. I determined that it was made up mostly of vodka and pineapple juice, with slight notes of cherry and walnut on the nose. I continued to indulge in the flavourful drink for a few minutes casually. Time passed, and I became smarter and more attractive.

* * *

Everything was fun.

The shipping box was fun.

Breathing through my nose was fun (and still is!)

However, the most importantly fun thing was my face. It was mushy and felt smooth like walls feel. I needed someone else to feel how smooth my face felt.

I meandered over to the group of humans that was sitting down in a circle underneath the bright setting sun, and hunkered down, plonking my head down beside Cliff. _My face. Feel._

Cliff didn't look like he understood, and Gray, who was on the other side of me seemed oblivious; he was more interested in his beer and stupid hat, which had gone missing.

_Eh, Cliff! _Cliff looked at me skeptically and shied away.

"H-hey… Big guy…"

_Feeeeeeeeeeeel the face._

I tried unsuccessfully to interest Cliff in my contentment for a minute or two, before a loopy, wobbly version of Omar knelt down beside me on the side opposite Cliff. Her long red braid was getting messy, but she still spoke with clarity.

"You've got to show him attention to get him to like you. He doesn't bite!" She said. She massaged behind my ears and petted my face.

_Smooth, right?_ I looked at her and I could tell she totally got me. She smiled.

Cliff turned to speak to Omar. "Bulls can get really riled up can't they? Haven't you heard of bull fighting? How do you know that he's not going to go crazy?"

Omar turned to him seriously and spoke in a low voice, a devilish grimace plastered on her face. "How do you know that _I'm_ not going to go crazy..?" She grinned and Cliff's eyes widened. He waited for her face to return to a cute smile. It didn't.

An awkward silence passed between the two humans on both sides of my body. Omar's stone-cold face paralyzed Cliff as she continued to stroke my smooth, loveable dimples. "Cliff, look into my eyes." She began, eerily. I lifted my head as Omar adjusted her legs and took a seated position, promptly replacing my large head across her soft leg shanks. "You feeling lucky?" She smiled again, with her cheeks gaining some colour.

Cliff looked meaningfully into Omar's deep eyes, confused, but interested. "You a-are crazy though, Ann." Cliff said matter-of-factly.

The two stared at each other. "Well if you can deal with me, you're fine around this dumb cow." She said, while absently stroking my chin.

Cliff remained where he sat, his attention was focussed on the other people at the party, but his glances always returned to the beautiful girl that was playing with my beard. He piped up, "Gray's going at the booze a bit hard, isn't he?" He attempted a conversation, for once. "I think he's taking his fight with his grandfather pretty badly."

"Was it that bad?" Omar asked, concerned.

"Heh, no." Cliff chuckled. Silence returned to the two of them.

The alcohol was starting to hit me at that point. Just how much I drank that night, I'll never be sure. More than enough, we shall say! I was not the only one who was feeling the effects of the delectable beverages served. Gray seemed to be especially obnoxious, which, despite his propensity for creating loud noises, was decidedly uncharacteristic of him.

Cliff, Omar and I sat in our own silence, watching the drunken antics unfold around us as the sun finished setting. I had been straight laid back chillin' and livin' like a villain, which put Cliff at ease after a few minutes. He idly picked a handful of grass and held it up towards me. I looked at it and decided I could really use a snack right then. I tried to lift my head a little, but I felt too dizzy to succeed, so I elected to stretch with my tongue to try and nab some sweet, sweet grass from his hand.

My tongue flailed in the airy lazily and in vain. Defeated, I relaxed my muscles and retired back to Omar's lap. Cliff pushed the grass closer to me though, so I went for it again. I think I accidentally bit his hand a little bit, but I ended up happily chewing a mouthful of grass shortly thereafter.

"Ah!" Cliff let a sound escape after his hand made contact with my teeth. "See, w-what if he really bit me?" he pleaded to Omar.

However, she was lost in a fit of giggles. "Stop cow! Stop—" she laughed, "—chewing on my lap!" she was in hysterics by that point. "It tickles! _Squee_!" more laughing followed and a slightly excited looking Cliff looked on, amused.

I lifted my head and turned inquisitively to Cliff, and Omar stopped laughing, with a tear slipping from her eye as she still grinned. Cliff shifted back a little, seemingly startled.

"Oh, come on, I think he likes you now!" Omar said to Cliff. I totally spaced. _Who is this guy again? Oh ya! Chris! No, uh… Cam. Yeah, hey Cam, thanks for the grass. Cam the grass-man, haha! I like your style._ I dropped my heavy face on the ground between the two of them and closed my blurry eyes. _Was the world always this silly-feeling?_ I decided that yes, it was.

In my reflective state, I barely noticed Omar grab the boy's hand and place it on my head. She began moving his hands slowly in a petting motion, and I noticed that the boy's hand was even smoother than my face. _The level of smoothness of that hand is in the top percentage of smoothness levels,_ I thought.

As the two hands stacked on top of each other petted me, I noticed that they remained stacked on top of each other, and gradually slowed the petting motion until they remained loosely clasped and resting on the back of my neck. They really were missing the point of the face massage. _Eh, Cliff! Make with the smooth hands!_

My eyes were still closed, and I nodded off, un-stimulated by the massage that Cliff was failing to give. That, and I was also drunk as a skunk.

* * *

When I woke up, Omar was cuddled together with Cliff—she was sleeping on his shoulder. She snored like a bear, but Cliff still looked reasonably content. Maybe he likes bears? _Eh, Cliff. What is your position on bears?_ I tried to make conversation, but Cliff ignored me and just stared off into the dark night's sky, absently stroking Omar's head.

A touch of hurt stabbed my heart as I remembered the lacking fervour with which Cliff had massaged me. Compared to the way he gently massaged the redhead's scalp with his fingers, the massage he gave to me felt like a lie. I knew now that his love was always for Omar, only I realized too late. I felt used. _I thought we had something special. Goodbye, Clifford. _I shed a single tear.

I felt thirsty, and so in order to replace the tear that the playboy had made me shed, I decided to return to the shipping bin to consume more delicious punch. I did not realize at the time the alcohol would actually dehydrate me. _Heh_, that's such a '_me' _mistake, you know?

Anyhow, as I lapped up my fill, Gray stumbled over to me, wobbly as a _Wobbuffet_. He scooped up some punch and it sloshed over the sides of the cup as he obnoxiously made his way back to the gathering of friends.

Gray sat down beside Mary and Claire, and started complaining. "Gramps is such a wiener… *hic*… 'scuse me. _Heeeee _thinks that he knows things. Well I could show 'im a thing or *hic*—" Gray placed his hand on his collarbone and he held his breath for a moment, then continued, "—two!"

"That's nice Gray. Now go away. You smell like butt." Claire said, also fairly intoxicated.

"I'll show _you_ a thing or two, _put 'em up_" Gray raised his left fist playfully as well as his right hand holding his drink, not caring about the drops of punch that were getting onto his pant legs. He stared at Claire with an exaggerated scowl, and then leaned in towards Mary's ear to whisper to her.

"Don't worry, I'm not actually going to fight her." Gray said in a harsh, loud whisper. He winked at Mary, who just rolled her eyes.

"Kwah!" Claire yelled as she leapt towards Gray from a sitting position. Her attempt at a lunge ended with her face hitting Gray's calf and her open hand poking at his face. Gray looked stunned, but obviously wasn't hurt because he is a hot-_bod_ blacksmith with sexy-huge face muscles. The feeble attack did cause Gray to fall backwards in his over-drunk state, however. In doing so, his drink tipped and fell onto the entire left side of Mary's summer dress.

"Ai!" She peeped, standing up and brushing the drink off of her garment with her hands in vain. She looked up from the stain on her clinging dress and was embarrassed to be met by the stares of most of the males in attendance. She tried to make her form less visible by turning and covering strategic areas with her hands.

As the males stared on she blushed furiously and puffed out her cheeks in frustration. "Claire, give me new clothes!" she shrieked. Claire who was still zoned out on Gray's calf was called to attention.

Claire and Mary hastily retreated inside to the old part of the house. When they returned, Mary was dressed in an over-sized shirt and jean shorts, which even to an outsider would have looked odd in contrast to her usual attire.

After the girls came out of the house, they noticed that Gray was still on the ground, squirming occasionally and looking very pale. He mooed, but it was a moo of pain. They rushed over to tend to him, which brought his poor state to the attention of the other townsfolk.

A few of the more concerned friends helped Gray up, despite his weak protests, and walked him over to Claire's new room. They lay him down on the new single bed, but he was a little bit too tall for it, so he lay there diagonally.

Minutes later, the townsfolk returned from depositing Gray inside of Claire's house, looking somewhat relieved. Mary had drawn the short straw and had to stay behind to make sure Gray made it safely through the night.

By that point it was already dark outside, and that foreign guy who randomly was at the party had started a fire. I sat by the light of the fire next to Omar, who still leaned onto Cliff and was sleepily clutching his shirt.

Claire stupidly stumbled over to us and plopped her weight down on my back as she leant overtop of me to put her face close to those of Cliff and Omar. She paused for a moment and smirked. "Ann!" she suddenly yelled out at the top of her lungs.

Omar instantly shot to attention, looking horrified and confused. She looked up dumbly at Cliff's face, and then became embarrassed. Cliff shrugged and shot her a shy little smile. "_What_, Claire?" Omar snapped, annoyed.

"Hi. Whatcha doin'?"

Omar was flustered, and tried to stutter out a response. She eventually managed to say, "Uh, what are _you_ doing?"

Cliff joined in on the fun: "What were you doing inside with Gray?" he said as he winked. This prompted a devilish smile from Omar, and the embarrassment faded from her face. No one could see in the dimly lit night, but I felt the hand that Cliff rested beside my body squeeze Omar's briefly, and they both smiled sneakily.

"With Gray? What?" Claire coughed. "He drinks like a schoolgirl, now he's dunk. I mean, _drunk_." She persisted. "on my farmhand's bed."

"Farmhand?" Cliff asked, seemingly interested.

Omar said some words: "Claire is getting someone to help on the farm out starting tomorrow. That's the whole point of her extending her house, dummy."

"His name is _Jaaack_!" Claire slurred, smiling. "I wonder if he's cute." She continued, dreamily. "Maybe he can be your boyfriend Ann!"

Cliff looked none too pleased, but awkwardly looked away towards the fire. Omar looked down at her knees and said, "Uh, yeah maybe!" She suddenly became bright. "It's not like a have a boyfriend or anything!" After she finished talking, she fell back down into Cliff's chest and smiled to herself.

Cliff looked as if he was about to say something, then caught Claire's mischievous smile, and chose to stay silent.

* * *

Towards the end of the night, Mary came out of the house to talk to Claire. "I'm going to send Karen home to tell my parents that I'm staying the night here. I'll make sure that Gray is okay. Um… you don't look so well yourself, Claire"

Claire had been drinking, at the suggestion of the foreign man who I call Kai. She became disinterested in beverages, but she was stuck with the effects of them. "I'll be okay, just… where am I?" Claire fell forward and collapsed onto Mary, who managed to stay standing under Claire's entire body weight.

"Oh, dear" Mary exclaimed. "Come on sweetie, it's time for bed."

Claire let herself become dead weight as Mary dragged her inside. As Mary handily carried Claire's small body inside, the blonde ragdoll hugged her.

When Mary returned, she started a conversation with a long haired brunette. "Karen, I need you to tell my mom and dad that I'm staying here tonight to take care of Claire and Gray. It's pretty late; they are probably worried that I'm not home already."

"But I'm going to get in trouble by them… why don't _you_ go home and _I'll_ stay and watch them here."

"Karen, I'm surprised you can still stand with how much you've drank. You are in no condition to respond if anything were to happen."

"Whatever, fine. Who's going to walk me to our end of town then? I'm _tired,_" the long haired brunette drawled. She kept her lips tight while speaking.

Cliff had overheard the damsel in 'distress' and he looked resolute in the fact that he would walk her home. He got up and after saying some quick goodbyes, Cliff dutifully set off to the other side of town with the drunken lady.

"Let's go see rick!" She shouted excitedly.

"No Karen," Cliff sighed. Come now, let's get you home."

She seemed happy to listen and followed cliff obediently. She slung her arm over his shoulder, shifting her weight onto his legs instead of her own tired ones.

All the while, Omar looked on disapprovingly as she sat near me. "He just up and left with my friend! That should be me!" She blushed, and then her expression softened as she read my blank expression. "You're the only dependable guy in mineral town, ya ol' cow. Come here," she said, as she began to pat me.

_If one were to say that I get all the girls, one would be correct. Score one for me, zero for Cliff. Better luck next time, bud._ I thought to myself. My bond with Omar had won out over Cliff's in the end.

Omar got up to get a drink, and ended up bringing over the now neglected punch bowl to enjoy to herself. She drank a glass, and then another. In an irresponsible lapse of judgement, she offered me some by tilting her glass above my mouth. I happily lapped it up, and it combined my loopy-ness and wobbliness into a tangle of confusing sensations. At this point, my head hurt. I got up to shake out my nerves, and found my legs to be very well defined, gorgeous and muscular. Also, they were wobbly. They were the sexiest wobbly legs on the planet at that moment. I fell, but got back up inconspicuously.

I had not seen Claire for a while by then, so I went up to her window to make sure she was okay. However, when I got within earshot, she certainly didn't sound okay.

Gray was calling to her through the wall separating their two beds, still sounding intoxicated. "How is it okay for a man you don't know to move into your house? What if something happened, Claire"

Claire was bawling, and she shouted back, despite Mary's attempts to calm her. "I'm doing this for you! You're a terrible person!"

"How is this for _me_? Why would I want you to live with a boy that none of us knows?"

Claire paused and sobbed, then retorted, "I'm trying to fix myself. I just need help with farm work so I have more time free to make myself better." She began to cry silently then. "Jerk," She whispered.

Gray was also silent. After a moment he mumbled something that was not heard by either of the two girls on the other side of the wall, and the conversation ended.

As the three humans tried to fall asleep indoors, the rest of the party goers headed home. I decided that I, as well, should retire to my abode. I started to walk clumsily across the farm, but tripped and fell down a little bit. I managed to push myself back to a standing position with my front legs, but Omar had caught me stumbling.

"Go to bed, cow. You're drunk," She sang.

_You're not my mom, stop trying to tell me what to do, GAWD_. I rebelled against Omar, but she grabbed my necklace and somehow or another led me to the barn. I drank water steadily from the water trough for what seemed like an hour, and then lay down in a pile of hay, falling asleep before I even touched the ground.

* * *

**A/NII: Egad! It ended on a note like this one because I split this chapter into two parts. Stay tuned for an exciting turn of events when Jack, the new farmhand arrives on the scene! Fun shenanigans to come!**

**Please review! I'm sure it will help me decide how to write interestingly :3**

**Also, I don't know the deal with Beta readers, but one of those would be amazing so I don't embarrass myself with mad errors. Wherefore do they come from?**


	9. Home-dogs in Law

**A/N: Hi guys! Another long chapter~ It starts out the morning after the party that happened last chapter. Mary and Gray slept over, and it is the morning that Jack, the farm-hand, is slated to show up! That's all for the recap; w00t.**

**Dear Mr./Ms. reader:**

CAPJHMPAgirl:Thanks for the advice! I ended up not finding a Beta reader lol. I'm glad you liked the last chapter :) and Jack is introduced this chapter! I didn't rush his development [read: I couldn't fit any more in the chapter] so next chapter will be more about him. There will be more jokes next chappy too! Thanks so much for sticking with the story and reviewing so often, it means a lot to me as a beginner :):)

**Tamaki11**: D'aww thanks. I'm happy to please, but too modest to admit I'm doing a good job. In short, I'm like, a perfect man. I hope you like the chapters to come :)

**Ancient Liddel**:thanks for joining up! I appreciate your subscribership :3 Ann is my favourite character too. She'll be around for some hijinx, but during future chapters. PM me too, if you have ideas for fun stuff you'd like to see happen! I'd like to include more community input in this so it's not just me going off about things I like but everyone thinks is boring. I'll mad snail-mail you a cookie if you do.

**To everyone else who is reading, thanks for being allies of justice. The world needs you now more than ever. Read about cows doing things: save lives.**

* * *

The day after Claire's party, I woke up early—about 7:00 in the morning. I mentioned previously how I was achy from the drinking escapades that happened the night previous.

When I managed to open my eyes, I saw that the most annoying person in the world was in the barn. I hadn't met him before that day, so I didn't yet know that he was such a bothersome brat. This, of course, was the morning I met Jack.

* * *

Jack totally just showed up on my farm—with no invitation, and no explanation. He began doing Claire's usual housekeeping work in my barn that day, which I thought was odd. _What would this wayfarer have to gain from doing these things on my farm?_ I pondered as he continued happily with the chores. _He'd better not ask me for food_, I grumbled, as I lay back down

He was busily tending to the sheep division, and I remained watching him diligently, without making myself too conspicuous. After a few minutes of sneaky observation, I decided that for now, he meant no harm. Humans are temperamental though, so I was careful not to make sudden, startling movements.

As I continued watchfully in surveillance mode, I stomached the pain from my hangover. However, recounting the fun times I had with Omar and Cliff the night before, I could happily look back on the memories of that night and say that I did not regret our rapscallion-ism, despite the horrible morning that resulted from my drinking.

The doors leading into the barn were open, and a tiny head of jet black hair peeked in through the entrance. Mary, clad in a spare pair of Claire's well worn light blue pyjamas tiptoed around to Jack, the brown haired intruder. "Excuse me" She said very quietly.

"AH!" Jack exclaimed, startled. _Oh no, the human has been agitated. I ducked my head as I prepared for his charge. _Luckily he calmed down almost immediately when he saw Mary's cute little face. "Oh, you startled me. Hi, I'm Jack! You must be Claire," he extended his scuffed hand energetically, which way dirty from the hay.

"Oh, uh—sorry, no." Mary said awkwardly, looking at Jack's face and away from his hand, smartly pretending to not have seen it. "Claire is asleep right now, I'm just making sure everything is alright here. I take it that you are Jack?"

"Yup!" he replied. "The ferry got in at five this morning, so I figured I'd get a head start on the work in the barn. I left my stuff in the room where Claire's boyfriend was sleeping. 'Hope that's okay."

"That's not her boyfriend!" Mary said, louder than she intended to. "Ah, um, that's Gray, he is the blacksmith of this town. He and I just slept here last night," she elaborated.

Jack smiled, "together?"

Mary's expression turned sour. "Ew. I don't care for crude humour." As she spoke, she crossed her arms in what I assumed was an attempt at covering herself up.

"Hey, I'm just asking." Jack said, appraising Mary's stony expression. "I feel like we're getting off on the wrong foot. Let's try again… Good morning, miss. I'm Jack!" A smile returned to his face.

"Mary." She spoke with a furrowed brow, but her expression became softer than it was before. "I work at the library in town."

"There's a library in this small of a place? That's so cool!" Jack said, and Mary's expression brightened. "I could use a good book once I get settled." He smiled.

"You can come to read when you have time."

"I will, after I get comfortable with the boss." Jack said, motioning towards Claire's house.

"You mean Claire..? She's… your _boss?_"Mary couldn't stop herself from giggling.

Jack looked hurt. "What is wrong with that, may I ask?"

"Oh, nothing!" Mary smiled. "I wonder if she'll let me boss you around too." She was giggling still.

Jack raised an eyebrow. The encounter between the two of them was coming to a close. Despite her smile, Mary looked slightly uncomfortable in the barn. Jack opened his mouth to retort, but didn't get to speak as Mary also began to talk again.

"I'm in my pyjamas still, so, I'm going to go now… " She murmured as she turned around. Jack closed his open mouth, and watched as Mary headed back toward the house.

Jack approached me a moment later. "She's a fun one isn't she?" he said, in a monotonic voice as he began to brush my fur. He looked at Mary as she slipped into Claire's house.

I noticed his interested gaze and followed it to the girl. _Mary is such a cutie-pie._ I thought, genuinely proud of my human friend. _I'm glad that she came by_!

"You think so too? You and I have so much in common, ya big ol' bull," Jack said directly to me. "I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship." His eyes locked with mine in a weird way. He looked expectantly at me and I turned away uncomfortably.

I wasn't sure what Jack expected from me; he was just saying words and staring at my face. I was starting to get annoyed. _I get it. I'm triple-A-good-looking. Now go ogle someone of your own species._ Some men are only concerned with looks. Honestly, what a one-track mind.

"Hey! I think you're getting the wrong idea…"

Jack was still going on with the words. _What a loser_.

I needed space, so I left the barn to try and lose Jack's company. He looked downtrodden, but understood that I needed some space. He called out after me as I left, "I hope we can be friends!"

Despite the awkward encounters that Jack was involved with, he didn't seem like such a bad guy. However as the man-in-charge of a large business, I simply didn't want to be distracted by such a needy human. I preferred the humans I owned to be like Claire—able to work independently. I decided that if he wasn't gone by the time my hangover was gone, I'd have to take action in getting rid of him.

I suffered the memory of the last time I had my cousin Vinny "make a problem go away" for me. I was young and naïve back then. How should I have known they were "harvest sprites" or whatever? They looked like criminals to me.

* * *

Later that day, Claire woke up, looking frazzled. Her hair was quite disorganized, except for the bit on the left side of her head, which was matted and just noticeably greasy. She had obviously just woken up, even though it was well into midday. At any rate, it is always pleasant to see evidence that she slept at all, as a good night's sleep usually meant a great day lay ahead for the little rascal.

She staggered ungracefully out of her door in overalls and a plain white tee shirt, and then walked normally, or at least competently, to the field where Jack was harvesting some tomatoes. "'You Jack?" She said with a neutral expression on her face.

"Hi! Yes, I'm Jack, so _you_ must be Claire!" he responded.

"_Mmm, _yeah_. _Cool, nice t' inside and I'll fix us all some breakfast. Afterwards you can get your room in order. I woke up the hobo that was squatting in your room, so afterwards you can start to get settled." Claire pointed with her thumb over her shoulder to a groggy looking Gray, who looked very pale and dishevelled.

_'Breakfast…but it's one in the afternoon'_, Jack said to himself. "Thanks!" He said aloud, smiling a vibrant smile. "I'll be right in." He picked up a few baskets full of tomatoes and followed a minute or so behind Claire.

As he walked past me, he stopped and bent down to whisper in my ear, "How many other beautiful women are you hiding in this town?"

_Stupid Jack, I don't speak your jive language, man. Get over me!_ I thought.

Jack seemed react to my facial expression, as his own expression faded to a slightly offended one. I thought it a bit odd, but I didn't think much of it. I was more interested in eating some grass, as my stomach pain has subsided enough to let me feel how hungry I was. My belly rumbled and I got a strong craving for some grass. I searched around for a good spot to start grazing.

Jack ducked away quickly and came back with an armful of top quality fodder. It was the kind of food that you need to spend a lot of money for. He stretched the bundle of food towards of me, and then looked at me with those annoying eyes. _Gawd, leave me alone, _I was thinking and I turned my head away from the offering. Seeing Jack's face suddenly made me lose my appetite.

Jack smiled and patted my head (_so annoying_), and then happily sauntered away into Claire's kitchen area. With Jack gone, my appetite came back with twofold strength. I stood deliberately beside the fodder Jack had set out for me and ate the pasture grass instead, in a symbolic act of defiance. It was lovely; my mouthful tasted just as one would expect of Claire's delicious home-grown leaves.

But soon, the scent of top quality fodder lingered in my nostrils. _Sure, Claire's grass is always the best, but… I should probably try some of that good fodder_. It's a shame to waste food, you know. I lingered above the fodder, breathing in the intriguing scent, and ate of it. _It's probably poisoned,_ I thought as I chewed my first mouthful.

Neurotoxins or not, the food was exotic and delicious. I ravaged half of the pile in a few moments, and just as I took another rather large mouthful in my mouth, the door from Claire's house squeaked open, revealing a clumsy Jack. He was rushing towards the field, speaking towards the open door, "Sorry! I forgot my hat in the field, I have to get it real quick. Don't start without me 'kay?"

He had a happy but slightly concerned look, like a mother would if her child was away alone at a summer camp. Except that he was a boy, and he had no babies, as far as I could tell. _Not since Jack Jr. went to summer camp… and never returned_, I imagined facetiously.

Jack closed the door behind him as he exited. He focussed on the field, but caught my eyes in his peripherals and stopped. I similarly caught his eyes and stopped. A bundle of the good fodder was jutting out both sides of my mouth and my chewing slowed as I locked eyes with jack. He stared at me with an unsure expression, and I stared back for what felt like 20 seconds of unbridled awkwardness. My chewing during this time slowed to a stop, and eventually I let my jaw slacken and the fodder I was chewing fell onto the ground. I was frozen; I was caught in the act of accepting the gift from the sneaky farmer. I broke up the starting contest and bent down to pick up some _fresh_ grass, _not any of that gross fodder that I was just testing_ _for poison_. Hmph.

Jack chuckled to himself and out of the corner of my eye I watched him walk all the way to the other edge of the field, where he retrieved his hat. It was a stupid looking blue baseball cap, for a stupid looking guy. Well, he was handsome by human standards I'm sure, but not by mine. He didn't even have horns; _so weird_!

* * *

Soon, it was well past dinner time on that same day. Jack had already disappeared for the night, so I could stop working so hard at the barn to show off how important I am. Answer: sensationally-important. Jack figured out who was in charge around the farm pretty quickly.

The sun had already set by the time Gray returned to the farm to knock on Claire's door. "Claire, it's Gray!" he said as he rapped on her door.

"Coming" was the reply from inside. "Hi."

"H-Hey, Claire. Um…" He looked boyish dressed in his casual clothing—a black shirt with jeans. "Sorry for sleeping over last night."

"'Kay," she stated.

"…And for yelling at your farm-boy during breakfast"

"'Kay." She repeated, unimpressed.

"And for… throwing up in your shipping bin last night, apparently."

That last remark made Claire's eyes become narrow and she scrunched her nose. "Apology accepted." Claire smiled energetically. "And you'll have to apologize to Jack too for making him clean up your mess!" she added as Gray flushed even further than he already was.

"T-thanks. No hard feelings eh." He said.

"_Naw_, I don't care about things. _Heh heh!_" Claire emitted a dorky giggle, so she withdrew her smile and looked slightly embarrassed. "What are you doing right now?"

"Nothing planned. I'm done apologizing finally." Gray joked.

Claire smiled. "Well you'll screw something else up soon I'm sure. Want to hang out for a bit?"

"Sure, yeah. What do you do for fun here?" Gray asked.

"Come with me! Let's go see my brother!" Claire said excitedly.

"Yeah—wait what?" Gray suddenly raised his inflection and gained a surprised look.

I noticed Claire skipping in my direction with Gray keeping up behind her. I caught her glance and they stopped in front of me.

"Sup, _my_ _brother!" _Claire said as she balled her hand. She tapped the top of my nose, and then the bottom, and finally the front of my nose with her fist. I didn't fully understand the greeting ritual. Sometimes she did this, and she even showed me how to do it before, but I didn't quite remember how it was supposed to go. _Wait, like… this?_ I questioned myself as I licked the flat hand she held expectantly in front of my face.

"Ah, gross! That's no high five, young man!" Claire said with a small smile forming on her face. She looked diagonally upwards at Gray, and then mischievously wiped all my spit off of her hand onto the front of his shirt.

Gray took Claire's actions in good stride, and pushed her playfully away. He didn't look as though he minded the slight stain on his shirt, and the two humans looked like they were getting along nicely. They continued talking while I cleaned up some stuff around the barn. After all, one of the keys to success is a neat and tidy workplace, as I always say.

I was reorganizing the individual pieces of straw on the floor when Claire and Gray came over for the express purpose of my company. They pestered me and guided me out of the barn and we were on our way to adventure before I could even do my hair. I was forced into going out with the _au naturel_ look, and I can't say that I didn't enjoy it. I was quite fetching that night, but there was no one around for me to fetch. Even still, life wasn't lonely as long as Claire and her friends were around.

I enjoyed the time I spent together with Claire and Gray, and we walked for over an hour through the dark and spooky forest. Claire managed to convince Gray to ride on my back for a bit, and they took turns getting onto my back for a ride. Gray was really heavy. At one point Claire and Gray tried to get on my back at the same time but I was having none of that. I sat down at that point for a while, and both of them got off of me so I could catch my breath.

When we finally proceeded, we found that we were just nearing the top of Mother's Hill, the highest point in mineral town. The view of the land was amazing even when it was only sparsely illuminated by moonlight, and the clear star-strewn sky was even prettier. I enjoyed breathing the fresh night air and stayed as far away from the steep drop-off as was possible. The only drops I cared for were those contained within my cousin's hard-hitting electronic music. The word association my mind had played between the steep cliff and electronic music made me recall the lyrics of my cousin's most famous song, _Bovine Landmine_.

I sang the lyrics thoughtfully as I contemplated the night's beauty. '_Wob wob wob w-w-w-wob wob wob screeeeee...' _There was a sublime approach to the poetry contained in my cousin's music which left me pensive in the scenic surroundings.

So too were Claire and Gray pensive, as they sat silently beside each other against a large rock face. They sat rigidly, so it seemed welcome when Gray broke the silence. "I used to think you were so weird," he laughed

"And I used to hate you for it," was her cold response.

"Hey, I don't think so _now_." Gray looked apologetic. "Back then I was just—I don't know. I was uncomfortable around you when you… _weren't you_."

"I'm always me, either you like me or you don't." I could tell Claire was 'sticking it to the man'. The system was not going to get her down.

"Ah—that's not what I meant." Gray pleaded. "Well—uh, anyways, now that I know that you are… the way that you are..." He paused, causing Claire to turn her head to the side to face him.

"Yeah?" She encouraged.

"I don't mind you." Gray stated.

"I don't mind you either."

"Good. I really thought you disliked me, even though you were walking around at night yelling that you loved me." He was looking away from Claire then, focussed perhaps too intently on the stars.

Claire's face was filled with colour. "To be very clear, I've obviously never loved you, that's for certain." Claire's voice cut through the air. "But, I've never had a chance to like you either."

"You can start now." Gray was finished looking at the stars and faced Claire as he spoke.

Claire replied, causing her features to betray a hint of exasperation. "That's not easy. I might never stop sleepwalking, and I want to distance myself as far as I can from the things that I have done."

"I don't understand." Gray looked confused, like someone had just asked him to explain what two plus two equals.

Claire began to speak with great purpose. "Let me help you _understand_. You're not the person who the rumours are about. I am the crazy girl, and you are the hapless victim. If you say that we should be friends, that's noble of you. 'Gray is just helping the farm-girl with her problems, even though she 's a psycho.' 'You're such a gentleman, Gray.'" She started, rolling her eyes.

She continued with more desperation in her voice, "Well what about me? Even if I ever did want to get to know you, it would make me seem even more unstable. I'd lose the town's respect—what little there still is left—and feel even worse about sleepwalking _which I can't even control. It's not my fault and I'm tired of people treating me like I'm a disaster… _I'm _normal_."

Claire's eyes were shiny, but she didn't look like she was going to cry. She looked happily relieved. "Am I less than them—the people in town?"

"No," Gray said as he began drawing symbols in the dirt idly with his finger.

There was a brief pause as Claire noticed Gray's actions. "What are you drawing" Claire inquire, her voice wavering.

"Oh uh—just a doodle." He said. He paused when he saw the hurt in her face. "Come here."

Gray was stoic. He put his arm behind the girl's neck and clasped her with his other arm.

"Gray I'm trying to tell you—I don't want anybody in town to whisper about me… or either of us."

Gray pretended to ignore her. Her shoulder was pressed just below his neck. "I don't care about that. Do you want me to let go of you?" He said as he rubbed her shoulder.

Claire didn't move, and neither did Gray. She looked down at the ground and her hair spilled in front of her face. "…No." was the delayed reply. Claire turned to face Gray's chest and wrapped her arms around his chest tightly, flattening her cheeks against him. Gray straightened his back against the rock face he was leaning against and looked out at the landscape beneath them.

When the humans stopped talking the night fell silent. It was early fall and the weather was cool, but pleasant. It was like standing in front of an air conditioning unit after a hot day's work outside. The atmosphere made my eyes droopy as I realized how late it was getting.

Moments passed and I began the pleasant struggle to remain awake, only so that I could be there, motionless in the night. The sounds of movement that came next rippled through the air.

The body that moved was Claire's. She motioned to get up, and first took her hands out from behind Gray's back. She grasped his shoulders in order to pull herself up off of his chest and had the imprints of shirt wrinkles on her face. It would have looked funny in daylight, but they were all but invisible with her face turned away from the moon. She used the strength in her arms that she accumulated from days on the farm to pull herself upright and supported herself on her knees.

Gray, who was sitting with his legs outstretched winced a little, for Claire had chosen to place her knees clumsily on his thighs, creating points of pressure that despite Claire's unimposing body caused a mild grimace to cross his face. He winced and quickly took in a small mouthful of air. Shifting sleepily, he moved his hand reactively to Claire's collarbone. He pushed her gently away as he shifted his weight to alleviate the stress on his legs, but was surprised as he met an unexpected force—Claire pushing back towards him. He let up on his arm's force, letting Claire move with greater ease. His hand absently balled up the fabric of Claire's shirt collar as her face lowered itself towards his. The fist that softly held Claire's shirt was squished between their chests as Claire's lips touched Gray's.

She pulled back after a short moment to read Gray's expression, then moved forward again and met lips with him twice more. The two smiled at each other, with Claire's being broken only by a yawn.

"This is kind of weird, with the cow right there." Gray said nervously.

"Don't be a kid. He's like my dog, or something" Claire replied, and both of the humans looked at me while laughing.

_She's like, my dog. _I thought. I didn't mean that she was a pet or anything like that. I meant it in the sense that I was her brother from another mother. _Claire is my home-dog_, I laughed to myself.

My sister from another mister readjusted herself so that her head lay in Gray's lap, and after a few short moments, she fell asleep with Gray stroking her fine hair on that brisk, still night.

* * *

Gray carried the sleeping girl all the way back to my farm—an exhausting, hour long trek. He deposited her in her bed and then rushed off for his own bed immediately. I did the same. I had a dream about Jack, which was really weird. I will record the details at a date in the near future, in a context where they will make more sense.

* * *

Jack woke me up the next morning. He was making a lot of noise, because he was doing a repair on the wooden panels of my barn. _Wait, why is that guy still here? Shoo! Go on! Get!_ I walked up to him and shoved him a bit with my nose. I didn't know what his deal was, but he wouldn't leave.

I was interrupted from my human herding when Claire came into the barn, with her brush. My thoughts turned from indignation at the intrusion of Jack to anticipation of the soft, fine bristles of the brush. I mooed in my anticipation, signalling to Claire that I was excited for the scratchiness of the gentle combing.

The brush touched my fur in a meeting of groovy sensitivity. She began to brush my sides and I stood there happily and patiently.

The two humans exchanged greetings, and talked to each other as my slick coat received Claire's salon treatment. As usual, she did a fine job with the brushing, but there was one spot she just never seemed to get. It started to itch and despite the pleasant brushing I was receiving, I began to get annoyed as I focussed on the lone itch I felt.

Jack gently placed his hand on Claire's hand that was holding the brush and lowered it, moving towards me. _How dare you interrupt my grooming session_ I demanded of Jack.

"Shhh, relax, Cow." He said, and much to my surprise, used his finger nails to scratch the itchy spot on my back in a direct bull's-eye.

"_MoooooOOOOOOO_" My voice cracked as I cried out in sweet relief. The itch was gone. I forgot about my animosity towards this stranger—the lost human who fatefully ended up on my farm, who possessed the magic hands. It was the best day ever.

* * *

**A/NII: I hope I could convey it within the text of the story, but to be explicit, Jack can understand all the thoughts that the cow is having. The cow can't understand Jack though, of course.**

**Review, point out mistakes, and PM me a link to your stories please! I'm running low on fics to read :P **

**Have a happy time, 'till next time!**


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